For a long time, RSS readers have followed an “Inbox Zero” design philosophy that shows you the unread count for each source. If you have more than a dozen feeds connected to your RSS reader, it can be hard to get to zero.
Silvio Rizzi, the creator of the popular RSS app Reeder, wants to meet the needs of users who want to escape the pressure of unread counts by redesigning the app. Reeder's new avatar focuses on compatibility with more sources, such as YouTube channels, Mastodon and Bluesky feeds, Reddit channels, podcasts, comics, and more.
Rizzi has no plans to retire the old app, which now has a different name: Reeder Classic. He told TechCrunch in an email that while Reeder Classic already supported sources like YouTube and Reddit, it didn't provide an ideal viewing experience.
“Some people may not know that most of the content the new Reader supports – YouTube, Reddit, Mastodon, etc. – is already available in Reader Classic, so in that sense, not much has changed,” Rizzi said.
“What's changed is that content is no longer retrofitted into a viewer originally designed just for RSS feed articles. The new Reeder offers a variety of viewers for different types of content, including articles, photos, videos, social media posts, podcasts, and more. It's designed to be easily extensible so that new types of content can be added in the future.”
While some of the app's core propositions remain the same, Rizzi built the app from scratch. In the previous RSS-style app design, iCloud syncing tried to grab everything, which made it unreliable and slow. The new version only grabs subscriptions, timeline positions, tagged items, etc. to sync. Eliminating unread counts across devices also had a positive impact on overall speed, the developer said.
Because Reeder has multiple sources, you can also create a curated feed and share it with friends and across social platforms.
The app is free to use, but you'll have to pay $1 per month or $10 per year to share feeds, sync your Mastodon and Bluesky timelines, and create more than 10 feeds. Rizzi said Reeder will soon be adding list swipe actions, new layout options, smart feeds, and keyboard shortcuts.
Reeder isn't the only app trying to build a solution for storing and using multiple sources in one place.
Other app makers are also exploring the idea of combining multiple types of feeds: The Browser Company engineer Nate Parrott's indie app Feeeed is one example; the team at Twitterrific is also working on an app for different feeds called Tapestry; and ex-Twitter engineer Joe Fabisevich's Plinky app isn't strictly a feed reader, but it does work with multiple formats.