Real Simple Syndication on Android ain’t Simple

RSSand feeds are a great way to get content from your favourite sites, without having to visit them constantly. A wonderful tool and a tool to see the current mood of the blog-o-sphere.

How I feel about Android RSS Apps

Now, I started using feeds very late in my web browsing life. I had to manually check headlines from multiple sites for news to read, but this was too tedious. Long story short, I started using twitter to get announcements from the blogs I read, and to get the headliners from other sites. Wonderful.

At first, I viewed RSS the same way as a twitter account. It lists, in date order, things that happened to the host. A way to quickly view what happened to this person/website for the past x posts. Actually, tweets are the same as a feed, just viewed and treated differently. I wonder how Twitter was inspired…

Now that I have a smartphone, an Android specifically, apps are the be-all and end-all. I have, as well as every other smartphone user has, a ton of apps. I have ones that do exactly what I need, I have ones I don’t yet really know what to do with, one’s with bells, others with whistles, and even one that is literally just the bells and whistles {link}. No, not really, but I think it would be a great idea for an app(patent pending).

However, as yet, I can’t find the killer RSS app for Android. I’ve tried at least 15 of them. Multiple times, after updates, reverting to earlier versions, the lot, I just can’t find one that makes me happy. Look, I know coding is hard. I don’t know how to code, I’m still early in learning it, so really, I can’t expect 30 perfect apps off-the-bat, all begging to be downloaded and compared.

But what I don’t get is the lack of consistency between features. One app has swipe controls, but only supports 60 feeds, where another has both, but won’t let you organise your feeds into bunches. They all have some great features, but are incomplete in comparison to another. Most of these features aren’t hard, surely? There are hundreds of crappy knockoff apps that do some of  these features, but totally fail in other areas, so these features are able to be coded. And yet, I still cannot find a killer app. The one thing all developers seek to make.

I should explain my harsh, unfair criteria.

1. Allow download of headers only, or be data-friendly.

(I can see why this isn’t critical for most devs, but it would push the app above any others, so I rank as it as first)

I have weak data access, and pay through the nose for the privilege, so bandwidth is critical. I recognise most buyers of these devices aren’t in my situation, but still, some apps have this feature, but not all. Besides, smartphones are also very popular to other countries.

I don’t read every single article downloaded, and with 80+ feeds, it’s impossible to read +1000 articles EVERYDAY, so I don’t need to download EVERY SINGLE ONE for offline access! Allow only downloading headers, like an email system. (Maybe allow a bunch download of all remaining headers after a button press(This would be harder, so no pressure to include))

This is why I don’t use, well, I do still use NewsRob, but NO apps that have any combo of the other features have this, including the otherwise best NewsRob, so yeah.

2. Swipe gestures or at least, quick access buttons

The second feature for a killer app is swipe. When browsing the feeds, articles I don’t want to read, I just swipe as read. I will even submit to a small button to press to mark as read, but most devs do not add this feature. It’s either a crap swipe system(extremely long sweeps, or unresponsive, RSSDemon), or no way to mark as read other than menu diving or actually reading the damn thing. This isn’t practical. If it has a touchscreen, exploit it! This is the reason I don’t use the Google Reader mobile site[link] or the App.

3. Integration to Google Reader

It’s the most widely used feed reader online, acts as a great catalog, and it’s a Google product. If you don’t have some sort of integration, any user that uses GR automatically can’t use your app as well as GR elsewhere, there would be too many redundancy issues. Guess which one they’ll ditch and which they’ll keep.

This is why I don’t use… any RSS reader without Google integration really.

4. I marked all as read for a reason, Don’t purge the unread.

One of the most irritating things about the apps that I otherwise would use, is that if you limit the number of feeds to download, unread articles get purged to make space for new ones. Meaning, I mark everything I don’t want to read, as read. I’m not going to mark everything I do want to read, just the ones I don’t. I just what to read these at leisure later. (This is where swipe as read is CRITICAL.)

I also what to see the latest news, on occassion,  next to the ones I earmarked. (NOTE: No bookmarked, I took no real action, I just didn’t read them YET. See the difference devs?)

Now this is the problem. On the otherwise competent apps I use, they purge these unread first, then only download the latest. Why not leave them there, and populate the list to the limit? When I ask for seconds, don’t scrape my plate clean before loading it again, PILE IT ON TOP!! I’ll tell you I want a clean plate if I want one!

This is why I hate the fact that I have to use NewsRob. It is brutal with the purging. I swear, it’s going to announce a flood soon…

After that exhaustive list of 4 issues, I’m sure no dev in the world will be able to integrate all of these features. I mean, I just don’t think the world is capable of handling this raw output of simplicity…

And there you go. If anyone can point me to an app that can do all 4 of these features, I will eat my words, and then I add a further ton of feeds to my reader.

Cuz by then, I’ll save money on data, save time of swiping away what i don’t read, keep up to date with Google Reader, and not delete articles I actually wanted.