RSS Readers vs Stand Alone Apps

[TheGrudge]

I downloaded a program on the weekend called "MobileRSS". I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but for those who aren't, it's an RSS reader for iPhone which I've synced with my Google Reader account.

Upon doing so I started thinking - why do I have all of these stand alone apps on my phone for mail, news, sports etc, when I can just pour all of their feeds into MobileRSS?

For apps like MLB or PGA I can see why you'd want the app. They offer much more content on players, schedules etc. But for just news sites, I'm wondering how these apps even stay relevant when you can compile all the stories into a single source and not have to download separate apps to view.

I'm just curious to hear others thoughts/setups.

 

[grahamnp]

I guess it depends on what services the original content provider chooses to give you aside from text and images. I use Reeder and it's great but the dedicated BBC app gives you radio streaming, video streaming from within the app and a customisable home page which pushes top articles to the front. Keeping with the BBC example, it's much easier to use the BBC app to find the more important stuff, hundreds of articles are a bit overwhelming when reading on the go.

 

[madmaxmedia]

You can take it one step further- the RSS apps can be slow and laggy when updating, may as well use Google Reader in Safari. See, web apps really are sweet! (actually, I do like using Google Reader in Safari.)

But yeah, the dedicated apps offer more stories, video, etc. But you don't need 50 different ones, just the ones you are really interested in.

 

[iggypod]

I only download content based apps if they have added functionality I wouldn't just get off of their RSS feed. I like having my RSS content available and synched on all my machines and devices (including my MBP and PC which don't have the apps per se).