Feedly 25.0.0

Most people like a daily dose of news in any form they can get it, whether it’s on TV, Twitter, Facebook, a collection of sites and blogs, etc. And then there’s those who really like to stay on top of everything, and for that you have a thing called RSS.

Rich Site Summary, often dubbed Really Simple Syndication, uses a range of standard web feed formats to publish frequently updated information to a client app or web interface that the user can manage. Feedly is one of them, and it has enjoyed a great deal of popularity so far.

Counter intuitive

Even though previous versions encountered stability problems and often crashed on users, it seems that the latest version has dealt with those issues since it appears a lot more stable. Feedly's relatively recent interface is pretty easy to figure out, especially if you use the tool on the desktop as well, but it does seem a bit more complicated than it should be.

Strictly visually speaking, it’s no longer appealing. Its UI has no more color (and by no more, we mean almost not at all), and the menus are hard to figure out. While switching themes on the desktop version will bring up several colored themes, doing so on your iPhone will merely get you either a blindingly-white version or a pitch black one.

Granted, the design is still well within the boundaries of elegance and simplicity.

Users have some options as to how the articles look like by switching between several available fonts. This should appease those who complain about not being able to customize the app too much, although the changes aren't that spectacular to make just about everyone happy.

DevHDneeds to clean up its act

Feedly remains the RSS app of choice for thousands of users worldwide, but because of the latest update, some of its functions have been crippled. The gesture-based interface is becoming very hard to use and understand by newcomers, and there are too many areas where you’re prompted to link the app to existing social networks, cloud services, and other things that deal with news and offline reading.

You can get started in more than one ways, and this ensures total chaos. You never know where you are (unless you’re an avid user), and it can be difficult to understand how to add sources and how to read them once they’re added.

Some sites aren’t displayed properly, and there’s no filtering on by default, meaning underage users will be exposed to the worst of the Internet, if they’re so unlucky as to browse to these locations through Feddly.

The iPad version isn’t anything to die for either, but it’s easier to employ thanks to the larger screen. The app is usable, at best. Unfortunately, DevHD will need to clean up their act to get higher marks from us.

Add to watchlist:

News reader/RSS

• The Guardian 3.2.0
• BuzzFeed 4.2.5
• Newscron 4.0.8

Portable version:

• Feedly for Android