Michal Ždanský If you had asked just three quarters of a year ago what the best Mac application for reading articles from RSS is, you would probably have heard a unanimous "Reeder". This software from indie developer Silvio Rizzi has set a new bar for RSS readers, especially in terms of design, and few have managed to top that feat on iOS. On the Mac, the application practically had no competition.
But lo and behold, in the summer of last year, Google discontinued the Reader service, to which the vast majority of applications were linked. While we didn't run out of alternatives for RSS services, with Feedly the most profitable Google move, it took a long time for app developers to rush to support all the popular RSS services. And one of the slowest was Silvio Rizzi. He first took a very unpopular step and released an update as a new application, which practically did not bring anything new. And the update for the Mac version has been waiting for half a year, the promised public beta version in the fall did not take place, and for three months we have no news about the status of the application. It's time to move on.
ReadKit came as expected. It's not a brand new app, it's been in the App Store for over a year, but it's been an ugly duckling compared to Reeder for a long time. However, the latest update that took place this weekend brought some nice visual changes and the app finally looks the world.
User interface and organization
The user interface consists of the classic three columns - the left one for services and folders, the middle one for the feed list and the right one for reading. Although the width of the columns is adjustable, the application cannot be moved visually. Reeder allowed to minimize the left panel and show only resource icons. This is missing from ReadKit and it follows a more traditional path. I appreciate at least the option to turn off the display of the number of unread articles, as the way it is displayed is too distracting for my taste and slightly distracting when reading or scrolling through sources.
The support for RSS services is remarkable and you will find most of the popular ones among them: Feedly, Feed Wrangler, Feedbin, Newsblur and Fever. Each of them can have its own settings in ReadKit, for example the synchronization interval. You can skip these services entirely and use the built-in RSS syndication, but you'll lose the ability to sync content with the web and mobile apps. The integration is a very pleasant surprise Pocket a Instapaper.
After leaving Reeder, I more or less relied on the workflow by combining the web version of Feedly reimagined in the app via Fluid and storing the feeds and other materials I would be working with in Pocket. I then used the Pocket application for Mac to display reference materials. Thanks to the integration of the service (including Instapaper, which does not have its own Mac application), which offers practically the same options as a dedicated application, I was able to completely eliminate Pocket for Mac from my workflow and reduce everything to ReadKit, which, thanks to this function, surpasses all other RSS readers for Mac.
The second essential feature is the ability to create smart folders. Each such folder can be defined based on content, source, date, tags or article status (read, starred). In this way, you can filter only what interests you at that moment from a large number of subscriptions. For example, Apple's smart folder today can display all Apple-related news that is no older than 24 hours. After all, ReadKit lacks a starred articles folder and therefore uses smart folders to display starred items across services. If the service supports labels (Pocket), they can also be used for filtering.
Reading and sharing
What you'll be doing most often in ReadKit is, of course, reading, and that's what the app is great for. In the front row, it offers four color schemes of the application - light, dark, with a hint of green and blue, and a sand scheme that is very reminiscent of Reeder's colors. There are more visual settings for reading. The application lets you choose any font, although I would rather have a smaller selection of carefully selected fonts by the developers. You can also set the size of the space between lines and paragraphs.
However, you will appreciate the Readability integration most when reading. This is because many feeds do not display entire articles, only the first few paragraphs, and normally you would have to open the entire web page to finish reading the article. Instead, Readability parses only text, images, and videos and displays the content in a form that feels native within the application. This reader function can be activated either by a button on the bottom bar or by a keyboard shortcut. If you still want to open a full page, the built-in browser will also work. Another great feature is the Focus mode, which expands the right window to the entire width of the application so that the other two columns do not disturb you while reading.
When you want to share an article further, ReadKit offers a fairly decent selection of services. In addition to the usual suspects (Mail, Twitter, Facebook,...) there is also wide support for third-party services, namely Pinterest, Evernote, Delicious, but also the Reading List in Safari. For each of the services, you can choose your own keyboard shortcut and display it on the top bar in the right part for quick access. The application generally offers a large number of keyboard shortcuts for working with items, most of which you can set yourself according to your taste. There is a lack of multitouch gestures against Reeder, but they can be activated with the application BetterTouchTool, where you set the keyboard shortcuts for individual gestures.
It is also worth mentioning the search, which searches not only the headlines, but also the content of the articles, in addition, it is possible to specify where ReadKit should search, whether only in the content or easily in the URL.
záver
Reeder's long-term non-functionality forced me to use the RSS reader in the browser, and I waited a long time for an application that once again lured me back to the waters of native software. ReadKit lacks the elegance of Reeder a bit, it is especially noticeable in the left panel, which was redesigned in the last update, but is still too prominent and interferes with scrolling through articles and reading. At least it is not so noticeable with a dark or sand scheme.
However, what ReadKit lacks in elegance, it makes up for in features. The integration of Pocket and Instapaper alone is reason to choose this app over others. Similarly, smart folders can easily become an indispensable feature, especially if you play around with their settings. A lot of hotkey support is nice, as are the app's settings options.
At the moment, ReadKit is probably the best RSS reader in the Mac App Store, and it will be for a long time, at least until Reeder is updated. If you're looking for a native solution for reading your RSS feeds, I can heartily recommend ReadKit.
[app url=”https://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/readkit/id588726889?mt=12″]
I recommend trying the Vienna rss reader http://www.vienna-rss.org
Thanks for the review. I use the reader - until the last update, it sometimes had a problem loading feeds from feedly. ok now However, what is a very cool feature is the display of the entire article in reading mode and focus on content. I somehow didn't notice this before and I always displayed the page with image content - but it's much better this way!