Reeder 4 is out: Bionic Reading, pull-to-refresh, a read-later feature with iCloud sync & more

Italian developer Silvio Rizzi today released Reeder 4, a major new version of its powerful RSS reader for iPhone, iPad and Mac, as a paid upgrade without a subscription option.

Reeder 4 includes many new features and enhancements over Reeder 3, starting with a pull-to-refresh gesture. In the main article list, pull-to-refresh will force a sync of your feeds. In the article viewer, the gesture takes you to the next or previous item. Aside from additional layout options and keyboard shortcuts, Reeder 4 finally includes a much-needed search feature.

Bionic Reading mode in Reeder 4 for iPad

A new Bionic Reading mode strips articles of unnecessary elements while emphasizing certain letters in order to let you read texts with more focus, awareness and sustainability.

Here’s more on that:

Bionic Reading is a new method facilitating the reading process by guiding the eyes through text with artificial fixation points. As a result, the reader is only focusing on the highlighted initial letters and lets the brain center complete the word. In a digital world dominated by shallow forms of reading, Bionic Reading aims to encourage a more in-depth reading and understanding of written content

An internal read-later service in Reeder 4, another new feature, makes it a cinch to queue articles for reading on your own time, and it uses iCloud to sync your reading progress.

Bionic Reading on iPhone

The article viewer has been improved, and by a large margin. If you’re more of a visual type, you’ll be pleased to know that Reeder now allows you to turn on image previews to make it easier to browse the article list (you can change the preview image size in settings).

A two-finger double tap on an image in the article list or the in-app browser magnifies it (speaking of which, Reeder finally uses WKWebview for its browser). The app adjusts the layout depending on your current window size, but this too can be changed in settings.

Bionic Reading in Reeder 4 for Mac

Reeder 4 supports popular RSS services, including Feedbin, Feedly, Feed Wrangler and a bunch of others. As a bonus, the software packs in standalone RSS support for those who need it.

To lear more about Reeder’s features, visit the official website.

A bunch of Light and Dark modes in Reeder 4

If you prefer to get your news via RSS, especially after Google pulled the plug on its own Reader service, do take Reeder 4 for a spin.

Reeder 4 for iOS is a $5 download from App Store.

The previous version, Reeder 3, has been available at no charge since last August, but Silvio has clarified that he might start charging money for the app again once Reeder 4 is out (for those wondering, Reeder 3 for iOS and macOS was free at post time).

Reeder 4 for macOS is $9.99 on Mac App Store.