The New Reeder By Silvio Rizzi: A Fresh Take on RSS
I’ve been testing the new Reeder by Silvio Rizzi since the early days of its TestFlight Beta. Yesterday, it was officially released to the public, and I was a bit surprised—it came out sooner than I expected. But clearly, Silvio felt the app was ready for the world.
The app has sparked mixed reactions, and that’s understandable. It introduces a completely fresh approach to RSS readers. I won’t dive too deep here, but I do want to quickly share why I believe Reeder could represent the next step in consuming RSS feeds.
If you’re interested in a detailed review, check out MacStories deep dive.
A Quick Note on RSS as a Medium
I haven’t been using RSS for long—only discovered it at the end of last year—but since then, I’ve loved it. For me, it’s the perfect way to stay updated on topics I care about, without dealing with algorithms or the manipulations of big companies trying to keep you hooked. Doomscrolling is out, and I’m free to curate a personal feed that actually provides value.
Lately, I’ve been trying to consolidate all the content I consume into my RSS reader (Reeder 5, now called Reeder Classic). This helped me create a “universal inbox” where I could track everything I wanted to read, watch, or listen to without hopping between different apps. For example, I added Apple Podcasts’ RSS feeds, allowing me to easily track new episodes. With a simple swipe, I could open an episode in the Apple Podcasts app and start listening. While this solution wasn’t perfect, it was effective enough.
Enter the New Reeder
The new Reeder takes this concept to the next level. It eliminates the need for workarounds and makes consolidating all your media into one app a breeze. And I love it—it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. No ads, no algorithms, no nonsense—just a clean, real-time feed of content from sources I choose.
I’d say one of the standout new features is the removal of unread counts, which, for me, is actually an improvement. In the old Reeder, seeing up to 100 “unread” articles could feel overwhelming and just add stress. Instead of displaying unread counts, the new Reeder remembers and instantly syncs your scroll position in the Home tab, where updates from all your feed categories are displayed.
This change makes the experience feel more like scrolling through a social media timeline—but with only the content you’ve chosen, and, unlike social media, it actually has an end.
The app’s minimal and aesthetic design makes it a joy to use. It’s fast, syncs reliably via iCloud, and everything feels smooth and intuitive.
Of course, there are still some features I’d like to see. Fortunately, Silvio has confirmed that more updates are on the way. For example, I’d love a feature that can filter out YouTube Shorts from RSS feeds. They clutter the feed unnecessarily, and it would be great to exclude them using something like a media duration filter or detecting #shorts in the video descriptions.
Conclusion
Silvio Rizzi’s approach to Reeder is brilliant—he’s transforming an old standard into something modern and cool.
For those curious, I’ve moved my podcasts, text-based feeds, YouTube subscriptions, Mastodon timeline, and a few subreddits into the app, and it’s been working wonderfully.
I’m not sure how many people, like me, want to consolidate everything into one app, but for those of us who do, this is the perfect solution.