The long awaited update to the Mac version of Silvio Rizzi’s Reeder is finally amongst the living. Indeed, Reeder 2 is now in beta and has been posted for download on its official website.
Rizzi, who is not known for indulging his customers with quick releases and frequent updates, launched Reeder 2 for iOS over six months ago. That release was met with mostly positive reviews, although the general consensus is that it didn’t add much in the way of new or envelope-pushing functionality.
On the Mac, things are a bit different. The number of excellent feed reading apps can probably be counted on one hand, and that’s being generous. I’ve only been able to play around with Reeder 2 for a few minutes, but I can tell you right off the bat that this is going to be one of the best feed reading apps available on the Mac. It’s fast, responsive, works with a variety of feed reading services, and it looks good to boot.
Reeder 2 works with four popular post-Google Reader feed reading services. The services included are Feedbin (my favorite), Feedly, Feed Wrangler, and the red-headed stepchild that is Fever. And like the iOS version, users also have the option of adding local un-synced feeds to the mix as well.
Although Reeder 2 is still in beta, I found it to be extremely polished. In anyone else’s world this would probably be considered more than good enough to slap it with a 1.0 label. But Rizzi, known for taking his dear sweet time, has let it marinate.
That’s not to say that Reeder 2 is 100% fully baked, because there are limitations that you may notice. The most glaring limitation of this public beta is the lack of an abundance of sharing services. In beta 1, Reeder features just seven sharing services, which is quite anemic if you compare the amount of sharing services available in the iOS versions. Additional sharing services, which will undoubtedly include things like Pocket and Pinboard, will be added when Reeder 2 is officially released.
But the most important part of the package, the actual reading experience, is downright excellent. Animations are smooth, syncing is fast, and the fonts are easy to read. Reeder 2 makes catching up on all of the latest news a joy. In other words, it will probably replace ReadKit as my RSS reading app of choice.
If you’d like to try Reeder 2, you can head over to Reeder’s official site and download beta 1 today. Share your thoughts down below in the comment section.