It’s been almost two months since I started using Reeder and I was thinking that I should write a review. Fortunately, Angel over at Apple Casts has already taken care of that for me. He does a very nice job so I encourage you to head on over there and take a look if you’re in the market for an (OS X/iOS) RSS reader.
As I wrote when I first adopted Reeder, I like it because it works across the entire Apple platform and keeps my reading in sync no matter which device I’m using at the moment. That last point deserves some emphasis: iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad, or iPhone1 it makes no difference. The “same” application runs on them all and because Reeder is a Google Reader client what I’ve read on one device is reflected on the others.
I put same in quotes in the last paragraph because, of course, it’s not literally the same application—it’s a family of ports of a single application. Each of these ports offers the same functionality and behave in essentially the same way but there are some UI differences due to different hardware. On the Macs, for example, you can control Reeder entirely through the keyboard if you like; with the iPad, the keyboard is never used except for entering subscriptions, emailing articles, and things like that. The hardware differences that matter go beyond the type of computer. For example, my MacBook has an “old” trackpad that recognizes only the two-finger scrolling gesture whereas my iMac has a Magic Trackpad that recognizes the full set of Apple gestures. The same full set of gestures are available on the trackpads of the newer MacBooks, of course. These differences influence how you use Reeder.
Here’s how I invoke the common Reeder functions on the various devices:
| Function | iMac (Magic Trackpad) | MacBook (old trackpad) | iPad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Next/Previous Feed | click on feed | n/p | touch feed |
| Next/Prev Article | 4-finger swipe down/up | j/k | touch down/up arrow |
| View Article | 4-finger swipe right | v | touch article |
| View Article in Readability | pinch open | g | pinch open |
| View Article in Browser | Menu | b | Menu |
As you can see, I’m inclined to control Reeder on the iMac entirely with the Magic Trackpad although I could use the same keyboard shortcuts that I use on the MacBook.
There are other Reeder function that I don’t use very often so I haven’t listed them. You may find you do want to use them or you may find that you want to invoke the functions in a different way from me. The nice thing about Reeder is that you can pretty much use whatever method you like except on the iPad where everything is touch based.
Update: touch up/down arrow → touch down/up arrow for iPad
Footnotes:
1 There is an iPhone version of Reeder but I don’t use it because I don’t like reading articles on the small screen.