(Image courtesy of TUAW)
Apple’s iPad was released in early April lacking in one key app area: RSS feed readers, specifically ones that synced with Google Reader. That’s changed in recent weeks, including the “praised and then pulled and then posted again” Pulse News Reader, but the one that most iPhone users have been waiting for is a native version of Reeder for the iPad. Over the weekend, those users got their wish.
TUAW is reporting that Reeder for iPad is finally available, complete with nearly five-star ratings across the board on the App Store. At only $4.99, Reeder for iPad is a bargain compared to other RSS reader heavyweights like the $9.99 NetNewsWire (which will soon increase to $14.99), but what makes it worthy of so much user love?
Reeder for iPad takes advantage of the larger screen real estate by showing feeds in stacks that you can pinch open to reveal the feeds inside -- at the moment, few websites are using the feed images to make this a truly wondrous affair (as you can see in the image above), but it’s still a cool approach and quite different than other RSS feed readers in the App Store.
Where Reeder for iPad really excels, however, is in its speed and ease of use. RSS feeds are synced from Google Reader like greased lightning, and you can quickly browse through the headlines in portrait or landscape mode. Tap on a post to open that feed, then you can either swipe up or down to load the next or previous one (or use the convenient arrows at the left side of the screen) or swipe right to hide the feed and return to your main list.
Stories are easily shared via Twitter or e-mail (Facebook is missing, at least for now), you can mark items as read or unread, bookmark them on Delicious and of course, save them to read later via Instapaper or Read It Later. Reeder for iPad also lets you set either Google Mobilizer or Instapaper Mobilizer to open a story and read it clutter-free.
At the moment, the only major thing that Reeder for iPad is lacking would be feed management; however, if you don’t need to add or delete feeds often and are still looking for a champion Google Reader client for the iPad, Reeder for iPad is certainly worth a look. The 2.1MB download is only $4.99 from the App Store.
