I'm first trying to find a free RSS Reader made for the iPad... I've been tempted to try out the Early Edition which I think looks pretty sweet. I like the format of the newspaper style, although it may not be that practical since I can imagine how having 15+ RSS feeding into the Early Edition could be chaotic as opposed to being organized more like the Mail app with the left side being the RSS Name and the right side being the articles from the RSS etc...

I heard that Reeder is pretty cool and that it was submitted to apple for review and should be released soon.

Is $4.99 worth the price?? I did not spend more that $5 for any iPod touch app at this time and have been a bit surprised with the prices for iPad apps.

Any suggestions?

Early edition works in much the same way as mail.

In Landscape mode, the list of available feeds/category is displayed on the left with the article on the right. What is different is that the first category is 'All feeds' so the default view is to show you all everything. However if you select one particular feed, it will only show you the articles relating to that feed. This is the way I tend to use it.

The 1.1 release (just released a day or two ago) allows you to group feeds into your own categories, so you can select a category and see all the articles for that category.

When viewing in portrait mode the feed list disappears, but you can call it up and switch feeds using a button at the top which is similar to how mail works in portrait mode.

Having said that, Early Edition is not perfect. The biggest problem I have with it is that it does (as yet) implement a read/unread status, but they 'are keen to add this feature'.

Is it worth the price? I thought so, but then I never used either an Ipod or Iphone and so am not used to app pricing and so I am comparing it with the price I would expect to pay for a desktop application.

Early Edition for me. But keep in mind, all of these RSS apps that turn them into some sort of RSS newspaper like content won't have the pictures. Most stories, if they aren't from default news sources (and I don't think I kept a single news source except engadget) will not display pictures where you click. Basically you will see a one line headline...then you will click it and it will have the same one sentence. You have to view original to see it.

Only a handful of RSS sources support the thumbnail etc. I'm actually thinking about switching RSS feeders for this reason.

Originally Posted by Matth3w

Early Edition for me. But keep in mind, all of these RSS apps that turn them into some sort of RSS newspaper like content won't have the pictures. .

Are you saying you have this problem with Early Edition?
I can see pictures in, for example,
The Daily ***
Dilbert Daily Strip
Engadget
TechCrunch
Yahoo News
XKCD

just to try a few.

Try out FoxNews, random vB forums, etc.

Have you tried Mobile RSS? I've been using it on the iPhone for a long time and had been itching for the iPad release which happened like three weeks ago. The app is great for Google Reader synchronization.

I switched to NewsRack on the suggestion of a forum member, and it's simple, easy, and fast to use.

I use Early Edition and have never looked back. It turns my RSS feeds into an e-newspaper that's completely customizable to what I want to read (and has the pictures to boot!). If you spend $15 on a monthly, real newspaper subscription, then Early Edition looks even better to buy.

Another thing to keep in mind, when it comes to the iPad and "good" apps, they will generally cost some money. To be honest, with what I see Early Edition do, I would have paid $10 for the app.

Originally Posted by Matth3w

I switched to NewsRack on the suggestion of a forum member, and it's simple, easy, and fast to use.

I have tried most of them and keep coming back to NewsRack. I am a heavy user of RSS and NewsRack with ReadItLater and InstaPaper excel.

I especially love how I can read several hundred daily comics with ease in NewsRack. None of the others do that correctly where you need to explode their size to see them at times.

IMO Newsrack is a better app than Reader or Early Edition. It has quite a few more features and it is quick and simple. Nothing fancy and gets the job done. There's just too many fanboys for Reader. Not sure if the developer is feeding them some kind of candy LOL...