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Rene, Seth, and Jim Dalrymple talk Apple’s endgame, 7-inch challenges, putting the user first, the problem with Newsstand, Google Currents, and more. This is iPad Live!

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Special Guest

• Jim Dalrymple of The Loop

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Music Hear me Roar by iPad Live theme song contest winner, DieselJesus!

Have an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch and curious which are the best, most must-have RSS feed reading apps you need to check out? We’ve already covered readers in general, from eBooks to comics, but this time we really wanted to focus on RSS news. So if you want to keep your syndication really simple, and yourself up to date with the latest new, read on for TiPb’s top 5 most recommended RSS feed readings apps for iOS.

NetNewsWire for iPhone, iPad

NetNewsWire is the granddaddy of iOS RSS readers and is still a favorite for many. It syncs with Google Reader, and while in version past that was a laborious process, improvements to both the app and iOS have made it much smoother these days. It’s now been given a whole new codebase and has been picked up by a new team of dedicated developers so its quite possible grandaddy might just become the new, fresh kid on the block as well.

Rather than a universal binary for both iPhone and iPad, NetNewsWire has separate apps for both. There is, however, a free version for iPhone with ads that you can try before you buy. If you want a great way to organize and chew through your Google Reader-synced RSS feeds, give NetNewsWire a look.

• Free – iPhone App Store link
• $4.99 – iPhone App Store link
• $9.99 – iPad App Store link

The Early Edition for iPad

The Early Edition was one of the first RSS readers available for iPad when it launched and it’s still iPad-exclusive to this day. Beautifully rendered in a newspaper-style motif, it won’t sync with Google Reader but will import your feeds to get you started. You can flip pages in the same way you can in iBooks, and there’s a familiar Action button to share your favorites.

Just like iPad itself, The Early Edition isn’t meant to be an on-the-go, breaking news reader. It’s meant for when you want to relax. When you have your feet up and a glass of wine or a latte close at hand. It’s for when you have time to just enjoy your feeds.

• $4.99 – iPad App Store link

Reeder for iPhone, iPad

Reeder manages to sync with Google Reader but without the slowdown many other apps seem to experience. Indeed, for a sync-enabled app, it’s smoking fast. It presents everything in a clean, clear interface that doesn’t seek to ground you in tradition or wow you with modern effects.

If you just want to power through news on the go, get in, get informed, and get back out, Reeder is a great way to do just that. It’s not a universal binary, however, which means you’ll have to buy it separately for iPhone and for iPad.

• $4.99 – iPad App Store link
• $2.99 – iPhone App Store link

Flipboard for iPad

Flipboard is a fun, fancy way to not only keep up with your Google Reader RSS feeds, but also Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. And that’s both a blessing and a curse. If all you want is your news, just the facts and fast, then Flipboard may be eye-candy-coated social overkill. However, if you prefer your news filtered through your social networks, if you value sharing as much as gathering, the Flipboard can be a blast.

Because of all of the above, it feels better suited for quickly glancing through tons of content than for deep diving and focusing on news reading, but it’s also free so you have nothing to lose by trying it. Except your time…

• Free – iPad App Store link

Pulse for iPad

When Pulse debuted it seemed like the RSS feed reader someone in the Star Trek universe would use. Geometric, colorful, and elegant its a mosaic view of your news and a great way to browse all the laster stories. Pulse doesn’t sync with Google Reader but rather lets you import your feeds so you start off with the sites you want, where you want them.

While Pulse isn’t a universal binary for iPhone and iPad, it is free so there’s no pain or price involved in trying it out on all your iOS devices.

• Free – iPhone App Store link
• Free – iPad App Store link

Your top apps?

So there you have them, our top 5 best RSS feed reader apps to get you going. Be sure to check out our Picks of the Week and iPad App and Games Forum for more recommendations, and if we missed any of your favorites leave them in the comments below!

Flipboard for iPad just received a fairly big update, including the ability to add feeds from Google Reader, Flickr and more! One new feature of note is the option to post photos and status updates to Twitter, Facebook and other real-time social networks.

Flipboard was initially released back in July and received a lot of early buzz. The app offers a dynamic and unique interface for browsing your social media feeds in a magazine-like format, flipping through “pages” of real-time content from your friends on Twitter and Facebook — a first of its kind.

Now that they’ve added more streams of content, the app has far more reach and usefulness for users. Take a look at the full update list after the break, and let us know what you think of the update in the comments below!

[iTunes - free]

• Be informed. Sync with Google Reader to read your feeds, folders and friends’ shared items. Star, share and comment on stories.
• Be amazed. Browse all Flickr has to offer, including photostream, favorites, groups, your contacts’ photos and interesting photos of the day .
• Be fulfilled. Read full content right away with more beautiful layout. Flip through gorgeous Flipboard Pages from Washington Post, Bon Appetit and more.
• Be social. Flip through your Facebook groups, fan pages, and photos from your feed. Browse your tweets, Twitter favorites, @mentions and lists.
• Be expressive. Post photos, status updates and even Flipboard pages across Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader.
• Be faster. Switch between sections faster using our instant section selector. Enjoy faster performance throughout your Flipboard.

Our sibling site PreCentral.net pointed out that the Google Reader Blog has announced some updates for their mobile optimized site. While they show it off on the iPhone’s Safari, it’ll work fine on any WebKit browser:

The interface is improved overall, and the laundry list of new features includes:

• Support for “liking”, tagging, and sorting feeds by oldest and newest
• A More/Less feature to reduce clutter
• Updates to the header bringing it into line with the likes of Gmail and Calendar
• The addition of a new drop-down menu
• A new “Recommended Sources” section

Wow, Google is showing no signs of slowing down the pace of WebApp innovation. If you’re a Google Reader user, give it a try and let us know what you think!

NetNewsWire [Free with ads - iTunes link] and NetNewsWire Premium [$1.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone, the mobile version of NetNewsWire for Mac and FeedDemon for Windows, have just hit 2.0 and brings a lot of compelling features to the table — especially for RSS geeks:

• Google Reader sync including Starred items synchronization
• Twitter integration – send articles as tweets
• Instapaper integration
• Latest News view –
• New article view
• New up and down arrows for navigating through news list
• Title and date of most recent item on Feeds screen.
• Excerpts and dates on news item lists
• Send articles via email without leaving NetNewsWire

It’s enough that I’m finally going to go all in on Google Reader and NNW 2.0 (at least for the next week — we’ll see if it sticks).

Screens after the break. If you give NetNewsWire 2.0 a go as well, let us know what you think.