Digg updates iOS app, still too little too late?

Digg has updated it’s iOS app to work with digg reader, but is it too little too late? Again as with the Digg web browser, my rss feeds are totally out of order, and can’t be re-ordered within the app. There aren’t many viewing or share options (it uses iOS’s sharing feature).
Hopefully this gets better, but for now I will stick with Mr. Reader 2.0 syncing with Feedly!

Mr Reader 2.0 for iPad iOS

MacStories has a great article on the new version of the iPad RSS reader Mr. Reader 2.0.

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Mr. Reader 2.0 an awesome $3.99 iOS iPad RSS reader, that gives Reeder a run for it’s money, and more so right now since it works with may more services than the iPad REEDER app which has not been updated in a while (though the update is promised).

Mr Reader 2.0 is fast and works with BazQux, Feedbin, FeedHQ, Feedly, Feed Wrangler and Fever. It also works with 1Password if you use that (please add support for SplashID Safe my password record keeping of choice).

Even more imprressive is it’s incredible sharing features! First off you can view the entries in the original RSS, a Full Web Version (far superior to Feedly’s pitiful web browser with no back and forward controls), Instapaper, Readability and Pocket. Then you can use a ridiculous amount of sharing services that you can re-order and do with as you please. You can add other browsers, other apps, like Hootsuite and many others, add mail actions, or even bookmarklets, so if you are viewing the web version you can share to Pinterest which no other RSS reader that I know of lets you do! And you can even download custom color schemes for the app!

This is an awesome program! So awesome I wish they had a paid web browser version that was this good, as I would totally use it, and use another service as my backend. It is so much better than the web interfaces of Feedly, Feedbin, Digg or BazQux!

This is an awesome app, and currently my iOS RSS reader of choice!!! You can get it at the iTunes store.

Bazqux is another Paid reader alternative

So there is a new Paid Google Reader alternative4 called BazQux Reader.
bazqux

You get a 30 day free trial, and then you can pay either $9, $19 or $29 a year to use the service.

It promises to be very Google Reader like, supposedly using the exact same API, all that needs to be changed is the address to allow programs to work with it.

It does not have a search function as of yet though.

And it has more sharing options than some allowing you to go to e-mail, twitter, facebook, google plus, tumblr, evernote, delicious, pinboard, pocket, readability and instapaper, though you can’t seem to turn off the share feeds you don’t want to use or re-order them in any way.

It is fast and very google reader like though, and since it is paid they promise not to go away.

Digg Reader Beta is Out

So for people who signed up for the beta, Digg Reader has been released as a desktop web only version (which that link will let you sign up for the beta), which will import your Google Reader feeds directly from Google Reader (while it is still up). I was able to try it out today and it is fast, and it imports your feeds very quickly, though doesn’t seem to care what order you have imported them in, and they are certainly not alphabetical, so you will have to re-order your feeds to use them.
diggreader

It has a clean interface, but not many options. You can digg posts, save them for later and share them with Facebook and Twitter and that is it. And they have not updated the mobile app yet, so you can only use it on your desktop computer via a web browser.

Like other alternatives it has no search function as of yet.

It is a decent enough free RSS reader, though not all that impressive as of yet.

Woohoo, best news I have heard on RSS front, Reeder will work with Feedly!

So I got a new e-mail update from Feedly, and they are working with Reeder to make it compatible, along with other popular news readers.

http://blog.feedly.com/2013/06/04/feedly-is-listening-the-roadmap-you-helped-us-shape/

Honestly I have been using Feedly quite a bit on the iPad, and it is good, though not quite as good as Reeder (especially with page navigation on an actual web page, which on iOS just seems to be the web site controls with no back or forwards button), though on certain things it would use it instead of reader, like looking at photostream RSS feeds.
And i still prefer Google Readers page to Feedly’s web page, but Feedly is decent enough that it may end up my solution.

Fever not going to be my Google Reader replacement, as my server does not seem fast enough!

So I have been giving a lot of RSS readers a try and love that Fever syncs with the iPhone version of Reeder for the iPad, but I am pretty sure Fever won’t be my replacement choice. And it isn’t that it is a good solution. It works like advertised, and I like that it is self hosted, but that is also the problem. At least for me.

I use BlueHost for my web server and like it very much, but Fever seems to run really really slowly on it! I am talking an hour to update all my feeds, which takes minutes at most for other programs.

Been trying out FeedAFever or Fever˚ RSS reader

If you read this blog at all you know I am not at all happy with the closing of Google Reader, and have been searching for an alternative that I am happy with. So far a combination of Feedly and Pinboard seems the best solution, but I really want to be able to keep using Reeder on my iPad, and the iPhone version is able to work with FeedAFever, a personal server based solution, so I have decided to give it a try.

Fever is a web based solution that you install on your web server. It is a fairly painless process, though it did require a bit of fiddling with server settings (had to move to a newer version of PHP), and then a $30 purchase to activate it.

After that the import of my exported google RSS feeds was easy, and only took a few hours. And all my feeds and groups came over intact, and it does work fairly well. I do have say the refresh on it is interminably slow though. I am on bluehost and have never had an issue with my sites, but I don’t have a dedicated server, and when I click to refresh, it seems to take forever! And I am talking over an hour with over 1000 feeds, and that is just way to slow, though you can keep using it while it refreshes.

The Fever web interface, and you can see the red refreshing status bar on the left.

The web app is very usable, with easy drag and drop. And you can add 4 different share links (though I have not figured one out to share with facebook, but have gotten e-mail, pinboard and Twitter working fine), though I would like to have those as individual buttons instead of a drop down menu (but the keyboard shortcuts make up for this on a desktop, but not on iOS).

The iOS version works fairly well and has a specific interface, though I don’t like how the only way to refresh is to refresh the browser, which takes forever. And it really isn’t as functional as the full web version, but is much better than the iPad version, which while it has some more features, seems buggy and not great.

On the iOS I would recommend using the excellent Reeder, though it doesn’t help with the slow refresh times.

Of course the big feature of Fever˚ is the Hot list, which takes your RSS feeds, and then you can add other feeds, which you don’t read much to it’s Sparks setting, and it will give you the hottest links in your RSS feeds based on what is trending in the other links. So far it seems to work as advertised, though I tend to like to read all the news on my own, so I am not sure how much I will use this feature, but it is a pretty cool feature. I will add some more feeds to Spark and see what happens, but will have to report more in the future.

It has a blacklist to keep things out of the list as well, though it should be easier to use, like I would like to be able to keep whole groups out of the feature, and you have to enter URL’s individually.

Overall a very impressive program and I will continue to play with it, though the refresh time may be the thing that drives me someplace else.