The problem with subscribing to a blog RSS feed is that you then need to have some downtime to connect and absorb. Other people may have a system worked out, but I’ve never found a way to make accessing and reading my RSS feed as second nature as checking my email or Facebook. However, finding something to do on my daily commute led me to a solution that I wanted to share – mobile RSS, and specifically a fantastic iPhone application of the same name.
Living in London, I take the dreaded Northern Line to work, which is generally a very hot and uncomfortable experience. As the outside world is unreachable when you are on the tube you are forced to find alternative modes of entertainment. I’ve found using MobileRSS on my iPhone an excellent way to pass the time and also read up on latest industry news. That is when I can keep away from my Civilization Revolution iPhone app! GEEK ALERT.
MobileRSS takes your Google Reader subscriptions and displays them all within the iPhone app, ready to be read. There is a free and paid for, Pro version of MobileRSS, the former displays adverts, but they don’t get in the way of the experience in my opinion.
Here are a few screenshots of the app.
So what makes this app so useful?
1. Offline reading, when connected to 3G or WiFi the app downloads all your subscriptions
2. Auto syncing with Google Reader on the web. If you add a new feed on the web, you’ll see this updated within the app.
3. Easy sharing of blog posts via email, Twitter, Facebook and Delicious, amongst other options.
4. It’s usable – a great, easy to use iPhone app, MobileRSS does exactly what it says on the tin.
Now I’ve got a tool for reading my blog subscriptions, the next step is making sure I action what I read. To paraphrase Tony Robbins, “Information isn’t power, it’s potential power”. Perhaps I’ll save that for another blog post.
Has anyone else used MobileRSS on the iPhone? What do you think?
Do you use a different iPhone or Android app for reading your RSS feeds?
