Many loyal users were upset when Google decided to drop the Google RSS Reader in 2013. There have been various alternative RSS readers and news apps with similar functionality available since then, including the popular Android apps Flipboard and Feedly. Now there’s a new option, called NewsTab. NewsTab aims to differentiate itself from the other RSS readers by providing more local content, already claimed to be from over 130 regions around the world. So if you travel internationally or have struggled to find a good local news source, NewsTab may be able to help. It also integrates with Google News and Twitter so if you already have favorite news sources set up in those platforms then it’s relatively easy to add them into NewsTab too.
When you’re using the app you can easily either skim through the presented headlines, or tap to get more information on each article. You can also create Google Alerts for a specific keyword from within the app. As well as the Android app, there is also a web version. Both are free and, as an additional bonus, there isn’t an iOS version yet so you can boast to any iPhone-owning friends. Within the app you have the options of a ‘card’ view, which provides a sequence of large tiles for each article, or a list view which allows you to see more of the headlines on one page. You can set the type of view individually for each of the sections that you’ve set up. You can choose the heading color for each section when you create them, and there are also dark and light themes so you can tailor the look of the screen to your preferences.
Most online news sources and blogs provide an RSS feed, a standard publishing format which includes photo and video, so you should be able to add in any of your favorite news channels. As a new app there are some features that are reported to be still under development for a future update, including the ability for the service to recommend additional feeds based on your current selection and preferences. Browsing for new feeds isn’t as easy as it could be unless you already know the name of the feed, but hopefully this will also improve in future versions.
