2009

Android Rss reader roundup

Posted By : Shaun McCran
Related Categories: Mobile, Gadgets

I've been looking at a few RSS readers for the Android platform recently, and some of them have been a bit hit and miss.
So I've decided to put together a quick rundown of the ones I've tried, with Pro's and Con's. So far they have all been uninstalled, but I'll keep updating this periodically as I find new ones.

Update 1: Added Rss Store

Update 2: Added Greed (Google news reader), newsRob

GReed: One of the more popular RSS reader applications if the reviews are anything to go by. I was initially a bit sceptical about using this, mainly because I did not have a Google Reader account (http://www.google.com/reader). I tentatively signed up for one, and installed the application. Much like a lot of other Android content this simply sync's with your online account settings. Add an RSS feed into your Google account, and it will be pushed to your Android phone. This means that you can basically add any feed at all. Its a really easy application to use, it has a clear menu system, it is very easy to see what you have read. You can view the 'latest' feed updates, or view individual feeds, and paging is done through a simple left-right icon system. Highly recommended.
NewsRob: Another application that uses the Google Reader account. Thid application is more basic than GReed. It goes off and gets the headline and the first line or two of an article in the background, so it is actually quicker to load an article. The problem lies in that it only gets the first line, so you have to click through to the related site to read the article. It also uses a lot more battery, I'm guessing due to running as a background service caching the intro to the RSS articles.
PureRss: This is a decent enough looking RSS reader, easily installed and up and running. The display area for articles is very small, and often the link through to a full article did not work. Also did not allow me to find an RSS feed on a site, I needed to manually copy and paste the URL.
AndRead RSS reader: A polished looking application, but most of the functions are in the menu button, which makes it a bit harder to get around. It pre populates a whole slew of categories, and fills them with recommended feeds, none of which I wanted. Also you have to have a 'category' to add a feed to it, which is a little annoying. The main problem with this application is that it didn't get my feeds! I tried three different sites, and it got the headlines, but no article data.
Rss Store: This sounded like one of the more promising RSS readers out there except when you fire it up it is half advertising space. This is a catalogue of pre determined RSS feeds, loosely catalogued under different headings, like business, leisure and sport. If the feed you are looking for is in there, then great, otherwise your a bit stuck. You can search, and add new feed sources, except that they are not actually added. The application logs a request for your feed to be added in a future iteration of the application. To me this is a huge backward step in software development, and is incredibly inflexible. This App came off quickly!