This new RSS reader is the smartest way to keep up online
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has allowed users to follow their favorite websites for decades. It basically presents all new articles on a specific site in chronological order as they are published, so you can read or ignore them at your leisure.
It is also the primary means of publishing podcast feeds, but it was originally designed to manage web feeds. Although RSS is no longer as widely used, with social media or newsletters now more commonly used to promote articles on a site, the standard is still appreciated by those who want a simple, clutter-free way to manage their online reading.
To use RSS, you need an RSS reader, and Current is one of the latest to appear. Available for iPhone, iPad and Mac, its intention is to let the content “flow” like a river. “Participate in what interests you, let the rest go” is the philosophy: this could be perfect if you like the idea of ​​RSS but don’t want to get buried in a pile of articles.
Current will cost you a one-time fee of $9.99, which gives you a license to use it on all your Apple devices. No free trial is available, but this article should give you an idea if it’s worth the investment for you.
Getting started with Current
Once you grab Current from the Apple App Store, there are a few things you need to familiarize yourself with. To begin with, the number of unread articles is exhausted. Don’t worry about how many articles you have unread, because Current won’t tell you. Instead, there are automatic expiration rules: news expires in a few hours, while trials last for several days.
The app uses the term “waterline” to refer to the boundary between new and old content. So everything above the fold has been published since the app was last opened. The “river” is the main information flow, and you can customize it in different ways, as we’ll see later.
When Current first opens, you can add feeds by choosing one of the recommendations, clicking Add a source to post an RSS feed manually, or using the Import OPML Or Connect the feed service to import feeds from another application. With Add Source, if you don’t know the specific RSS feed URL, simply paste it on the website’s home page and Current does the rest.
For each food item you add, you can set what’s called its “speed”: basically, how long it stays in the river. Your choices here are Breakup, News, Items, EssayAnd Evergreen. Highlight stories disappear after three hours, lingering stories after seven days, and other types somewhere in between. When you are satisfied, click Add to river.
Once the river itself opens, you’ll notice how minimal it is. You can tap and click on articles to read them. You can see the full article or just an excerpt, depending on the feed, and if necessary you can open Safari to read the entire article. There are also quick links to save articles or publish them (pushing them out of the river).
If you’re using macOS, you can also use keyboard shortcuts (A. release, S to save), then click the triple rectangle icon at the top to switch to a two-pane layout (called sifting mode) that displays both the river and the currently selected item. Click on the River at the top left to move between sections of the app and search for articles.
Customizing and adjusting Current
The current look may be minimal, but there are still plenty of settings and customizations you can play with. For example, you can configure several currents. A technological trend and a sports trend perhaps, or different trends for professional and leisure reading. On macOS, click Current > Settings > Currents to manage these different flows.
To create your first current, click on the small + (Plus) icon at the bottom left corner. You will be asked to give a name to your new current and to choose the sources that should appear in it. This new current is then available in the main menu of the application, but you will still have the main river section which displays all sources.
On the General You can tell Current how often you want it to check for new articles and set the default view that appears when you open the app. You can also choose to see the oldest articles at the top of the feed, while the Sources The tab is where you can add new websites to monitor and manage existing ones.
Below Appearance you will find many ways to change the appearance of the application. There are nine different color combinations to choose from below Reader themeand you can also change the font size and content width. THE Show thumbnails The toggle switch is worth turning on, as it makes the app a bit more visually appealing.
Finally, the Advance tab in Settings This is where you can reload published articles (in case you want to bring them back), clear all data from the program, and start again. There’s a similar set of customization settings on iOS and iPadOS, which you can find by tapping the cog icon in the upper right corner.
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