Newsr, a Great Android App for Google Reader RSS Feeds on Android Tablets
by Jonathan Lonczak
Jun 7, 2011 2:21 PM –
Install
Newsr gives you a tablet-centric way to casually read your Google Reader RSS feeds. Newsr is optimized for the Honeycomb experience on Xoom and is only available on Android tablets running Honeycomb. Newsr stays in sync with your Google Reader account so you’ll never read the same news twice!
Price: Free
Tested on: Motorola Xoom
Content Rating: Everyone
Android Version: Android 3.0+ (Honeycomb)
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Pulls all of your feeds from Google Reader and displays them in a Honeycomb friendly environment!
- Allows you to switch between multiple Google Reader accounts!
- Sorts articles by Label or Feeds!
- Excellent visual transitions when loading article view within Newsr!
- Allows you to sort articles by date and hide read articles!
- Allows for sharing of articles through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Etc.
Cons
- Not as visually appealing as some competitors.
- Does not allow for the addition of new feeds to your Google Reader account from within the application.
Features:
Newsr is excellent news reader application which allows you to import your existing Google Reader feeds and view them in a honeycomb optimized environment. Newsr makes use of the new API’s in Honeycomb to provide multiple panes of news and to show various news categories in an easy to use interface.
Newsr allows you to view sort articles from your Google Reader account in two different ways: “Label View” and “Feed View.” In “Feed View” Newsr breaks down your Google Reader subscriptions by feeds. The application’s interface is split into three panes: a scrollable list of feeds, a scrollable list of articles, and the RSS feed contents of the selected article. This interface allows me to easily switch from one news source or article to another without having to delve through endless menus to discover the content I want.
In “Label View” Newsr breaks down your list of feeds by category in Google Reader. For my list of feeds it breaks it down to “News,” “Board Games,” “Listen Subscriptions,” and “Starred.” Therefore all my RSS feeds that are under the heading “Board Games” show up under “Board Games” in Newsr and my my Podcasts show up under “Listen Subscriptions.” Like “Feed View” all of my feeds are broken in to three panes in “Label View.” Those three panes are category of feed, article name, and article view. Like “Feed View” this allows you to easily find the content you want and switch from one article to another.
While perusing an article in the article view pane you will see the contents of the article from the RSS feed. Often times with major news sources like New York Times or the BBC News this will only show you a piece of the full article in order to produce interest and make you view the full article on the news site. Newsr allows you to open up that full article inside the application’s own environment with the button resembling an eye on the right hand side of the article. Upon clicking the eye Newsr launches a new window within the application in order to allow you to view the full article.
Newsr also supports article sharing. Article sharing supports all of the normal avenues of sharing available to you on your device. Some of these include Facebook, Gmail, Email, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Dropbox, and Evernote. Other sharing applications on your.device should be supported as well.
Finally, Newsr supports the use of multiple Google Accounts, allows you to hide viewed articles, and offers sorting by article date. This allows me to have one Google account devoted entirely to Android news and another account devoted to current events, podcasts, and board games. The sorting of the articles makes for an easier reading experience, and hiding read articles prevents you from wasting time trying to remember what you have already read.
Watch on Mobile via friends at AndroidCentral
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Newsr Article View
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Newsr Article View 2
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Newsr Show Labels
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Newsr Show Feeds
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Newsr Share Options
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Newsr Settings
Usefulness:
Newsr is an extremely useful tool if you own a device with Android 3.0 Honeycomb and either use or would like to use Google Reader to aggregate news for you. Newsr sorts your Google Reader feeds in an easy to view fashion which is vastly superior to the Google Reader application for Android. The multiple pane design is extremely easy to use and saves time when perusing articles or feeds.
The options to sort feeds and hide feeds that have been read are extremely efficient at sorting the news you read in order of importance and prevent you from wasting your time re-reading articles. Newsr is also extremely useful if you have more than one Google Reader account. It allows you to easily switch from one Google Reader account to another within the same application framework.
One negative point about Newsr is that it cannot completely replace the native Google Reader interface. There is no way to add new feeds or categories in the Newsr application. Instead you have to go to the Google Reader webpage on your device and add your feeds through Google’s Native web client. This means that despite all of the wonderful features of Newsr you will still have to revert back to Google Reader when you want to edit or update your feed list.
Ease of Use:
Newsr is extremely easy to use if you already have a Google Reader account. It allows you to import all of your feeds in to one easy to use application. Newsr breaks down your feeds in to a multiple pane view which allows you to easily switch from article to article or from feed to feed. If you have a Google Reader account you will be able to set up Newsr in about 30 seconds and the application will take care of the rest for you.
Frequently Used:
If you use Google Reader then Newsr will be a daily flyer for you. It makes Google Reader much easier to use and more visually appealing than the Google Reader application for Android.
However, Newsr is not as visually appealing as other news reader applications such as Taptu, Pulse News Reader, or News360. If you are looking for a fancy interface full of pictures then Newsr may not be for you. The transitions in to article view are excellent and the interface is extremely user friendly, but don’t expect it to be similar to these other more visually oriented applications.
Interface:
The interface for Newsr is excellent. It is easy to set up and use and contains all of the essential features to make reading from your Google Reader account easy.
The only two complaints that could be given about the interface are it’s lack of fancy imagery that is found in competitors Taptu, Pulse News Reader, and News360; and it’s inability to edit your Google Reader feeds from within Newsr’s own environment which I discussed earlier.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
Android Tablet Apps,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
App the Reads RSS Feeds,
Google Reader,
Motorola XOOM Apps,
News Aggregate App,
News and Magazines,
Newsr,
RSS Feeds,
RSS Reader
Categorised in: News & Weather
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