Feedly, the app that plans to take the RSS reigns from Google Reader when it’s retired in July, released a new version of its app on Android this morning. Over the last two weeks, Feedly has added some 3 million new users thanks to Google’s announcement, prompting the team to quickly upgrade their apps to be much more polished, stable, and feature rich. After spending the weekend with this new version in place of Press (my usual RSS reader app), I can easily say that I’m a fan of what Feedly is up to. 

The UI of Feedly’s app is completely swipe and gesture based. If you want to access your folders or feed lists, there is a panel to the left side which can be accessed with a swipe. If you want to refresh your feeds in this panel, simply pull down to refresh. As you read through stories, a swipe left or right gets you to the next article in line. A swipe upwards from the bottom marks the item as read and takes you back to your list of articles. From your view of articles, a swipe upwards takes you to the next list of unreads. As you continue down, continuous swipes upwards will get you to the end of your list which then allows you to mark all as read. A swipe from the right side gets you into the brand new Feedly discovery engine, where you’ll have access to 50 million different new sources. As you can see, it’s all about swiping left and right or up and down.

The app also has night and day themes, color coded folders, different viewing options, quick share buttons for services like Twitter, Google+ and Pocket, and more. It’s a fully-featured RSS app that is certainly worth a look should you be in the market for something new once Google kills off Reader.

Here are the rest of the new features:

• A faster and more intuitive vertical transition model.
• Brand new widget.
• New layouts for Samsung Galaxy, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.
• Better control over the list, magazine and mosaic views.
• Better Youtube integration.
• New explore panel.

Play Link

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via:  Feedly

Feedly Releases New Update on Android – Introduces New Discovery Tool, Pull-to-Refresh, Easy Sharing and More is a post from: Droid Life

With Google intending to kill off Google Reader by July of this year, people in my industry are freaking out a bit. You see, we all live and die with RSS feeds as we browse dozens throughout the day to help us create the stories that we bring to you. But we’re a small group, as the comments on this site and Twitter have helped us realize. RSS feeds are not as popular as they once were – if they were, Google wouldn’t be killing off their famed service. Many of you have turned to Twitter, Pulse, Flipboard, Google Currents, or a variety of other services.

Speaking of Currents, I retweeted a comment this afternoon from a reader who suggested Google kill it off instead of Reader. As someone who rarely looks at Currents unless it has received an update, I fully agree with this person, however, many of you were quick to point out that you enjoy the service and would rather stick a needle in your eye than use Reader.

So that brought me to today’s poll – how are you gathering your news throughout the day? News readers? News gatherers like Pulse? Social media?

Question of the Day: How Do You Find Your Daily News? is a post from: Droid Life

This afternoon, Google announced that they have more spring cleaning to do, which yes, means more closures of services that you probably use. In order to focus on making better products, they do not want to spread themselves too thin and have decided to eliminate a number of products. One of those is Google Reader. Yes, that Google Reader. The same one that you probably use to store all of your RSS feeds in. 

It won’t die off immediately, though. You have until July 1, 2013 before you need to pull all of your data out and find a new RSS client.

Here is what Google had to say:

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

While disappointing, I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is all that surprising. Google has neglected Reader for some time, especially when it comes to their Android client. Much like with Google Listen, the lack of updates or introduction of new features was a sign that things were slowly coming to an end.

R.I.P.

Via:  Google Blog

Google is Killing Off Google Reader in July of This Year is a post from: Droid Life

Press, our favorite feed reader application on Android, received an update today to add extension support for the hottest app on the block right now, DashClock. This new extension will show you unread counts for articles, as long as you have it set to sync automatically in the background. Otherwise, it’ll just show a “0″ until you manually refresh it.

In order to use this new extension, you’ll need Press and DashClock. With both installed, add DashClock to one of your lockscreens, press the “Add Another Extension” button, and then choose “Press.”

If you are a big feed or Google reader user, you should really check out Press even with its $2.99 price tag.

Play Link $2.99)

Cheers Michael K!

Press for Android Receives Update, Joins the DashClock Supported Party is a post from: Droid Life

Press, the feed reader Android application that has quickly become a favorite of the DL staff, received a sizable update this afternoon. While the original release of the app grabbed our attention, it was still missing some pretty basic features that other feed reader applications have had for some time. Simple things like background syncing and auto-sync on app launch are just a couple. Those are now included, along with a new way to quickly navigate between articles, more detailed sharing to social networks, and new text-alignment options. 

Here is the full changelog:

• Quick article navigation to go to next/previous articles
• Background/automatic syncing
• Sync on app launch
• Background syncing notifications
• New text-alignment options
• Show image title and URL in the image viewer. (xkcd fans rejoice!)
• Date and time formats now match device settings
• Article title is now included when sharing to social networks
• Lots of performance enhancements and bug fixes

Play Link ($1.99)

Press Receives Major Update: Sync on App Launch, Background Syncing, New Article Navigation Included is a post from: Droid Life

Both Google Reader and Google Docs have updates available in the market as of the last hour. Each received an Ice Cream Sandwich makeover of sorts that includes swiping between stories or document categories, the same sharing options as you will see on new web versions, and prettier widgets. To be honest, the Reader update doesn’t look all that different, but the new Docs version most definitely resembles the look of G+ which was also recently updated.

Market Links:  Google Reader | Docs

Cheers Manny!

Google Reader and Docs Apps Receive ICS-inspired Makeovers is a post from: Droid Life

Hooray for more tablet apps!  The number of Honeycomb apps seems to be on the rise these days, but we could always use more, especially the apps we use on a daily basis.  Google Reader is by far my top choice for a feed reader, so I couldn’t be happier that it now looks tabletified.  Sure, there are plenty of spicy photo-centric readers like News360 and Pulse that get the job done – I just like my news simple.  If you want something without all the fluff and that reminds you of an in-browser reader, then this is a great choice.  

Market Link

BlazersEdge shout out!

Tablet Support Comes to Google Reader App in New Update is a post from: Droid Life

Go ahead and uninstall Pulse, Greed or any other RSS reader app you had installed on your phone as Google finally released their Reader which mimics the browser version perfectly.  OK, telling you to uninstall those other apps isn’t really fair, but after glancing at Google’s attempt for 5 minutes I can tell that this will immediately become my default.  It’s free, simple and has the backing of Google which means it should actually work correctly.

Grab it now!  

Download Link

Cheers @JasonAGrier and Cade!

Google Reader App Finally Released on Android is a post from: Droid Life