I would like to make sure I'm staying current with blogs and other text sources of interest. What's everyone's favorite accessible RSS reading app these days? Thanks.
RSS readers is one of the categories where we are fortunate to be spoilt by choice in terms of apps which are both good and accessible.
Consequently, it’s one of those nice situations where you can choose the app which best meets your needs in terms of features and usability. In my case, this means that syncing with an online service is essential, as is support for folders. In the case of folders, being able to choose whether to view an aggregated list of all articles in a folder or articles filtered by feeds in that folder is also very important to me. The app must also have support for loading articles in mobiliser services such as Instapaper Mobiliser or Google Mobiliser. I also like to keep the number of taps to a minimum, so prefer apps which will go straight to the full article in the mobiliser view rather than having to go to the truncated RSS version first. The final essential options are to be able to sort articles so that the oldest is at the top of the list and to show only unread articles.
I know that none of this has got close to answering your actual question yet (smile), but I wanted to stress just how picky I am, as this might give you an idea of what it takes for an app to get my recommendation.
I have ranked them, but would be happy to stand behind whichever one has the featureset that most matches what you want. All are extremely good and fully accessible. At different times, each has been my app of choice and I still find myself switching between them.
One thing that I find mildly irritating about Feeddler is that it will only download a limited number of articles in a feed at any time (off the top of my head, I think that it’s 20). So, on busy feeds, that means you have to do a drag gesture at the end of each batch of 20 in the list to force the app to download and show the next 20. But, I did mention that I was picky, yes? (smile)
Unread is another accessible option. However, it relies a little more on gestures. The original developer showed a commitment to ensuring that these were accessible with VoiceOver. However, the app was recently sold to another developer, so I wouldn’t like to assume at this point that they will show the same commitment.
If you choose one of the three apps that I have mentioned above, I don’t think you will be disappointed.
Comments
Spoilt for choice
Darrell,
RSS readers is one of the categories where we are fortunate to be spoilt by choice in terms of apps which are both good and accessible.
Consequently, it’s one of those nice situations where you can choose the app which best meets your needs in terms of features and usability. In my case, this means that syncing with an online service is essential, as is support for folders. In the case of folders, being able to choose whether to view an aggregated list of all articles in a folder or articles filtered by feeds in that folder is also very important to me. The app must also have support for loading articles in mobiliser services such as Instapaper Mobiliser or Google Mobiliser. I also like to keep the number of taps to a minimum, so prefer apps which will go straight to the full article in the mobiliser view rather than having to go to the truncated RSS version first. The final essential options are to be able to sort articles so that the oldest is at the top of the list and to show only unread articles.
I know that none of this has got close to answering your actual question yet (smile), but I wanted to stress just how picky I am, as this might give you an idea of what it takes for an app to get my recommendation.
And, here they come:
I have ranked them, but would be happy to stand behind whichever one has the featureset that most matches what you want. All are extremely good and fully accessible. At different times, each has been my app of choice and I still find myself switching between them.
One thing that I find mildly irritating about Feeddler is that it will only download a limited number of articles in a feed at any time (off the top of my head, I think that it’s 20). So, on busy feeds, that means you have to do a drag gesture at the end of each batch of 20 in the list to force the app to download and show the next 20. But, I did mention that I was picky, yes? (smile)
Unread is another accessible option. However, it relies a little more on gestures. The original developer showed a commitment to ensuring that these were accessible with VoiceOver. However, the app was recently sold to another developer, so I wouldn’t like to assume at this point that they will show the same commitment.
If you choose one of the three apps that I have mentioned above, I don’t think you will be disappointed.