Expert’s Rating
Our Verdict
These day it seems like almost every developer make a Google Reader client for browse your favorite RSS feed — or will soon . ButReeder for Mac(Mac App Store link ) is a breathing time of fresh air in this crowded market place , offering a healthy venereal infection of features polished up with an interface that shows its iOS roots . You might call Reeder for Mac the Twitter app of Google Reader apps : Like an increasing act of fresh Mac apps , Reeder take obvious user interface clue from Twitter ’s official node , Twitter for Mac ( formerly called Tweetie ) , as well as from Lion ( Mac OS X 10.7 ) itself .
After you accede your Google account credentials in Reeder ’s minimal login window , the app loads your feeds and the articles they carry . The nonremittal interface is a compact window that displays your feeds , provender grouping , and follow Google Reader user on the left ; and a listing of headlines ( for article in the presently selected provender or group ) on the right hand .
Double - click a headline , or press spacebar with an article selected , and the entire window is filled with the article view ; click the close button , or press relief valve , to go back to the provender / headline scene . you may also configure multi - touch gestures that permit you purloin between articles , send the current story to your favourite social - media service , and much more . Keyboard jockeys are welcome , but Reeder could sure do more to make them feel at home base . For example , using the chit key to change keyboard stress between the feed and headline list works , but interface feedback is next to none .
Reeder’s Minimized view toggles between the feed and article lists (left) and the article view (right).
If you line up this alternating leaning / web page approach distracting , you may give your provender and newspaper headline a permanent position by switching to Classic view , which opens a consecrate article - reading pane to the right . Keyboard shortcuts for toggling this reading pane and other interface features make Reeder quite flexible , though there is admittedly a bit of a learning breaking ball . While Reeder ’s port style and spoken communication is ordered across the Mac , iPhone , and iPad version , it can take a little while to get used to if you are n’t intimate with Reeder on iOS . It does n’t help that Reeder ’s toolbar picture do not even present text labels ( tooltips ) when you brood over them .
Reeder ’s out - of - the - boxwood configuration presents a sort of Google Reader splashboard — a compact windowpane that ’s less daunting than other provender readers , and that can fit on the screen next to another app or two . But Reeder ’s interface also scale well , with toolbars and button layouts that expand graciously , either with the reading pane expanded or when conduct advantage of Lion ’s raw full - cover feature . ( Some Clarence Day , I keep Reeder capable next to my web web browser or email client and bound between them ; other days , I ’m just as felicitous to employ Reeder in full - screen mode and swipe to it from my working background for a quick news jailbreak . ) These and other niggling particular make Reeder a pleasure to habituate , and it ’s one of the few Mac apps that aptly tackles both compendious and expand interfaces .
Reeder is also societal - media savvy , letting you deal fib to Twitter and Facebook , but it also supports a welcome crop of extras , includingEvernote , Pinboard , andZootool — though not Tumblr . you’re able to also send off article to Instapaper andReadability , and apply either of the services or Google Mobilizer to make articles more clear . you could pick out which share and bookmarking services look in Reeder ’s toolbar , and you could even custom-make each religious service ’s keyboard shortcut .
Reeder’s Classic view uses a single window with three Mail-like columns: feed list, article list, and article view.
Reeder is not without its shortcomings . Its gesture - friendly interface skews hard toward trackpad users ( perhaps intelligibly , give that 75 per centum of new Macs sold these days are notebooks , and even desktop purchaser can prefer for Apple ’s Magic Trackpad ) . It also does n’t offer many feature film above and beyond those rule in Google Reader ’s World Wide Web port . For exemplar , OS X - like smart pamphlet and searches would be a nice start , as would caching images for offline reading ( a feature its Io blood brother put to good economic consumption ) . A squeamish 2nd footstep would be to take some aspiration from the “ spicy ” headlines sport inFever , a self - hosted choice to Google Reader that I really care but that ’s updated too infrequently for me to use seriously .
That said , Reeder has a unique manner while still finger Mac - similar , specially on Lion ( thanks for the most part to Reeder ’s iOS root ) . A pliant interface , a great out - of - box experience , and customizability made it my go - to Google Reader node from the first day I used it . Whether you have five provender or 500 , you ca n’t go unseasonable with Reeder for Mac .
David Chartier is a Herald forAgileBits , chief wrangler of theFiner Things in Tech , and an unrepentant technical school intelligence junkie .
