Reeder (for Mac) Review

Voracious Web readers understand the value of RSS feeds, which allow users to subscribe to their favorite online publications, tag stories, favorite articles, and generally manage their links in a tidy fashion. If you're an RSS devotee who owns an OS X desktop or laptop (there's no Windows version, unfortunately), you would do well to download the $4.99 Reeder from the Mac App Store, despite its quirks.

Turning the Page
Reeder piggybacks on Google Reader, prompting you to log with your Google username and password—or create a new set of credentials from scratch—when you launch the app. Reeder then asks permission to serve as your default RSS reader, which I highly suggest. Reeder has a cleaner, more elegant, OS X-like interface that's very easy to understand. It's customizable, too. You can change everything from Reeder's color to font to column layout. That alone is worth the price of admission

Reeder, by default, is segmented into three panes: the RSS feed column (which displays the source and number of unread articles), title and excerpts column (listed in order by publication date), and the main content area (where text, photos, and video appear). You can set Reeder to display starred items, unread items, or both—I appreciate the flexibility offered here. It also lets you subscribe to and manage feeds from within the app without ever touching Google Reader itself, which is a nice touch. Even better, Reeder syncs with Google Reader so articles marked as read in one will be marked as read in another. Google Currents still doesn't walk arm in arm with Google Reader in a similar fashion—a shame.

Easy Reader
Pages are formatted in a very clean fashion with lots of eye-friendly white space. That said, some images were oddly aligned, but there's a remedy for that. Tapping an article title opens the actual webpage within the app, which comes in handy when you want to read a page in its true format (or you come across a site that only displays RSS excerpts).

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Reeder includes a highly useful search tool that lets users search a name, word, or phrase within a particular RSS feed, or across all subscriptions. As a RSS power user, I found it very useful when looking for specific items. Once you find a particular article, you can share and/or save the link to Twitter, Pinterest, Delicious, Instapaper, Pocket, Safari Reading List, Evernote, Mars Edit, App.net, Zootool, Readbility, and Quote.fm.

Reeder supports touchpad gestures, which let you quickly execute actions with just a finger swipe. Swiping from up to down, for example, opens the selected story. I prefer to point and click my way through stories, but having multiple options at my disposal is not a bad thing. On that note, Reeder supports multiple accounts, but in a highly quirky fashion: You need to hold down the "ALT" key as Reeder loads in order to sign in with a different Google account.

If you'd like to take Reeder on the road, an iPhone version is available for $2.99. We liked it so much that we deemed it one of PCMag.com's 100 Best iPhone apps.

Happily Ever After
Google Reader fans who desire more flexibility than what the RSS reader offers should drop $5 on Reeder. It's lightweight, highly customizable, and makes navigating feeds a snap. It's made for the hardcore Web reader, but anyone who reads online will find it a useful app, despite a few niggles.

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