How To Keep RSS Feeds Synced Across All Devices
Posted 12/27/2010 at 12:37pm
| by Scott Rose
On my Mac, I use Safari’s built-in RSS reader to keep on top of my news feeds; I like seeing the unread count in Safari’s toolbar. But I can’t figure out how to see the unread count on my iPhone and iPad, and keep my read stories in sync between devices.
Safari’s built-in RSS reader is a one-trick pony; it can only show you the unread count of your news stories on one Mac. Even if you synchronize your bookmarks to other Macs via MobileMe, it still won’t synchronize your unread count, so you’d have to mark your stories as read all over again. Even worse, Mobile Safari doesn’t support the unread count at all, so your iPad and iPhone won’t show this information.
The best solution for you is to switch to Google Reader (free, reader.google.com). Because Google Reader is a web-based RSS reader, you can access your news feeds from any device you want, and all of your stories and unread counts will stay in sync. Plus, a large ecosystem of Mac and iOS apps have been created to support it.

The GReader-Checker extension shows you the number of unread RSS articles in your Safari toolbar.
On your Mac, you can show your unread count in Safari’s toolbar by installing the GReader-Checker extension (donations requested, rafeed.me/safari-extensions). And you can get Dock notifications, along with other features, by installing NetNewsWire (free, netnewswireapp.com) or Socialite ($29, realmacsoftware.com).

Feeddler keeps your iPad and iPhone effortlessly in sync with Google Reader.
On your iOS devices, simply bookmark the Google Reader site, save a shortcut to your home screen, or explore the dozens of iOS apps that synchronize with it, showing the unread count as an icon badge. Our favorites include Reeder ($2.99, or $4.99 for iPad, reederapp.com), Feeddler RSS Reader (free, universal, chebinliu.com), MobileRSS Free (free, with free HD version for iPad, nibirutech.com), and Early Edition ($4.99, iPad only, glasshouseapps.com).
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