Not too long ago…uhm….right here in this galaxy, I received an email from my good friend Dan, over at What’s On iPhone.  Dan was writing to tell me about a fantastic RSS reader he had discovered, called iNews.  He was also writing to say that JAMM was among a small handful of sites which he had recommended the developers include among the default RSS feeds in the program.  I am very excited, especially in light of recent events, that the developers agreed with Dan, and now include JAMM as one of the preloaded RSS feeds in the program.  So, I felt a closer look was warranted.

Like the name suggests, iNews is an RSS feed aggregator, which allows you to stay up to date with all of your favorite news feeds.  Now, I have two requests for an RSS feed reader.  First, it must be accessible.  It has to make it easy to update feeds and sort through my feeds from the iPhone.  And offline reading does not suck so much either.  My second requirement, and the more difficult one to find, is that it syncs with Google Reader.  I like to be able to view my feeds from anywhere when I have a spare second or two.  Right off the bat, I could see that iNews was one of those rare RSS readers which would satisfy all of my requirements.

Adding Feeds

When you access the iNews app, you will be taken immediately to this feed editing screen.  from here, you can add or remove feeds.  To remove a feed, just hit the big red delete button on its left.  You can also reorder the feeds by grabbing the hash marks on the right and dragging it to a new location.

There are four ways to add feeds to iNews.  First, you can search through the preloaded Popular Feeds.  Hey, take a look at the last entry under Geeky, there is JAMM, ready for you to select.  I might also recommend a few of our other favorite sites which are included in this app as well, such as: What’s On iPhone (Apple News) and Gear Diary (Geeky).  Just tap the feed you wish to select to add it to your main screen.

The second option at your disposal is grabbing feeds straight from your Google Reader.  Just log onto your Google Reader account from iNews, and then select any feeds you wish to add to your iNews account.  My only complaint here was that the app does not sync live with your online Google Reader account, meaning that while you can import your feeds, you will still find yourself reading duplicates as you switch between your iPhone/iPod Touch and your desktop computer.  Apparently, though, this is about to change.  The folks over at What’s On iPhone had a quick chat with the iNews team, and here is what they had to say:

Our approach on the iNews version 2.0.2 is like this:
- iNews equip with 2 way sync Favorite Articles with Google Starred Items.
- If you have intesting articles you want to read while on the go, just mark as starred and sync to iNews. You are ready on the Go.
- Each time you refresh all the google reader feeds. It only download articles that have not been read.
- And if you read the article on the iPhone, just sync back to google reader, you will know which one has been read and not.

In other words, they will be adding ful sync, the key missing feature of the app in my opinion yet maintain its speed and simplicity of use.

That is good news, which can make the Google Reader portion of this app infinitely more accessible.

Finally, you can search the app for a specific feed, or add a new feed simply by typing in the feed name and URL address.

Reading Feeds

Reading your feeds is a truly unique experience.  Rather than the traditional long list of feeds, the main reading screen in iNews shows a series of tiles, representing each of your feeds that have new entries.  This looks great, and makes it easy to find your feeds in a snap.  My only complaint here is that there is no way to access feeds with no new entries.

Tap on any tile and you will jump to the new entries for that feed.  What is interesting here is that the feeds are actually arranged as a long list, so from this screen you can just scroll around to access any other feed.   Just tap on any entry to expand to the full feed entry for that item.  From here, you can read the entire entry, jump to the original, or jump to the mobile version of the original.  You can also choose to view images (in their original format) from within the entry.

The really nice thing here, though, is the tilt control.  Activate it and you can read through the feeds by simply tilting your device.  No need to flick your screen again.

Despite all of these really unique and extremely usable features, I did find a few of the basics were missing from this app.  For example, there was no way to simply mark a feed or an entry as read, without opening the full entry,  Likewise, it would have been nice to re-order the feeds.  Currently, you can view only the feeds with unread entries, and in strict alphabetical order.  I would have liked to arrange the feeds by category, or even chronologically, so I could see the latest feeds first.

Overall, I was really impressed by this app.  The tiled approach to displaying news feeds was a unique and effective means of providing quick access to your feeds.

I am also very proud of the contribution JAMM has been able to make to this one.  It is only the second time (of which I am aware) that JAMM has been included as a default feed in an RSS feed reader like this.  The other, of course, was Ilium’s NewsBreak, which has since been incorporated into HTC phones as RSS Hub.

Check out iNews in the iTunes App Store.  You can download it for a mere $0.99 (normally $3.99) or check out the Lite version for free.

What I Liked:

• Tiled interface
• Tilt scrolling
• Sync with Google Reader
• Dozens of preloaded feeds (including JAMM)

What Needs Improvement:

• Does not currently sync with Google Reader (coming soon)
• Can’t mark feeds as read without opening
• Can’t access previously read feeds
• Can’t re-order the feeds chronologically, or by category

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