As you may have noticed from my Wanted Post, I’ve been looking for a decent RSS Reader App, although having not used one previously, I didn’t know exactly what features I was looking for.

I did know, that since I have recently starting using public transportation again, I would need one that caches/saves feeds for reading while not connected to Wifi, or 3G. My official reason for this is that it’s not always possible to be online in places like Subways or suchlike, but the fact of the matter is that I am still using a 2G iPhone, without a data plan.

It was a relief, and mildly unsurprising, to find out that pretty much every RSS App can pull from my Google Reader subscriptions, because having to manually resubscribe to each feed would have been a pain in the ass.

With all of that in mind, and not having any promo codes for Paid Apps (hint hint, developers), I also limited my search to Free Apps, and here is what I churned up:

Free RSS Reader
I’m going to assume that this is the most popular Free App for RSS feed reading. I am sure that this would be a great App, if I could get it to import all of my feeds, which it did not do. It only imported three. So I uninstalled, and upon re-installation it imported zero. So, instead of fussing over and over again, I had other options, moving on…

Next up:
NetNewswire
This App properly imported all my Reader Feeds, already an improvement!

Very, very basic reader with little/no user Customization. I’ll bullet-form the features, and then describe the experience:
- Imports Feeds from Google Reader only
- Main page offers Show/Hide feeds option
- Sharing an article is offered via Email, Twitter and Instapaper

The main thing that really bugs me about this App is that, in order to cache a feed (to read offline) you have to open each article/post individually. Otherwise download/caching is spotty at best, even for text.

Sorry NetNewswire – you fail. I’d be willing to try out your Pro Version, if it weren’t $4.99!

Will iNews O Win?
Maybe…

This was the App with the sleekest design, and certainly the most user-customization. Quick feature rundown now:

- Imports feeds from Google Reader, has Twitter Integration (Auto-tweets ‘favorite’ articles).
- Main page has a crazy amount of features for customization. (Here’s a Quick screen-cap of most of them).
- Once you click your feed of choice, you can continue to scroll through the headlines of all your feeds. In addition, there’s further custom features for this page, where you can set up your on quick-button menus (for favorites, download all, mark as read… and more).
- Finally you arrive at an article, here you can share via Email, Instapaper, Read It Later, Twitter (with or without Comment) or Facebook.

I also wanted to mention that it’s got a “Left Handed” setting, I tried it, but as I’m now a southpaw, I didn’t see any difference!?

Two things I found important to note.
1) When reading an article, you have a button to ‘Read Next Article’ but not ‘Read Last Article’ – you have to go back to the previous page for that. Annoying. And as it’s a button, you can’t simply scroll through articles like the headlines. Also Annoying.
2) Unless you specifically ‘Download’ each article you want to read later (or set up the button and remember to ‘Download All’), the caching is spotty for images.

I suggest you download this App and try it out yourself, because it’s probably going to appeal to a lot of people, especially considering the massive custom options/settings. With that in mind, I can’t think to imagine what their iNews Premium ($3.99) must do!

But even though this App has a billion, frillion customization options, the most important thing I was looking for – reliable caching for offline reading, was still missing. And then I found:

MobileRSS Free

Like a beautiful ray of sunshine, split from the rainclouds above, causing a perfect rainbow to crest across the sky, MobileRSS Free ‘Google Reader’, came into my life. And lo – there was rejoicing.

Ok, maybe not that epic. But have a look at these sweet features:

- Customizable Menu/Main Page, just enough not to overwhelm you. Simply hide/view the options you need like Favorites, Read Items, Notes, Shared, etc.
- Scrolling through headlines and articles up/down all from finger sliding – way more natural than buttons.
- Sharing of an article can be done via Email, Reddit, Facebook, ReaditLater, Instapaper or Delicious. (See Screencap of this beautiful menu)

However, by far, the best thing about MobileRSS is it’s caching. Not only does it load all articles (not just the feed headlines) upon start – it also gives you a nice little alert, letting you know images have been cached, too.

Another feature with this App that I didn’t know I wanted until I had it in the palm of my hand, was that it imports my “People I’m Following” Feeds from Google. And, similarly, I have the option to share items via my Shared Google Feed. Awesome.

If you’re a Google Reader user (as this App only works with Google Reader), this is my #1 pick for an App for you. For heaven’s sake, it’s FREE. However, if you want to dish out the $2.99 to get the Ad-Free version, it’s available. (I think I just might!).

Remember that any Feed Reader is only as good as the feeds you subscribe to, some blogs post horrible ‘excepts’ of their articles instead of the full thing, so that you have to visit their site. Ick.

Even though I linked to the US iTunes store for all Apps in this post, they’re all available on the Canadian Store too. I’m glad I found a reader I love, and if you have too, please let me know.