ReadKit App Reviews

I’d been hesitant to purchase this app, since I already use Feedly, but the integration with Pinboard sold me on it, and this app has completely changed my workflow. I now actually check my RSS feeds consistently instead of popping by the Feedly website once every few months, reading a few articles, and then marking everything else as read because it’s too much. It’s also been instrumental in cleaning up my cluttered Pinboard account. All my unread items now go to Pocket, which makes them easier to read on the go, and then I can easily move them to Pinboard if they’re something I want to save. And it had never even occurred to me that I could use RSS to follow YouTube and IFTTT to follow Tumblr until I started using this app. For the first time in years I actually feel in control of the content I consume, share, and save. The one feature I would love is built-in Tumblr support. Currently I have an IFTTT recipe that sends all new posts on my timeline to Pocket with the tag {tumblr dashboard}, which I’ve created a smart folder so that I can go through it quickly, but while I find it a lot easier and less overwhelming than using the Tumblr website, it’s a pretty awkward process. For many of the Tumblr entries, I have to hit a keyboard shortcut to see the webpage view in order to actually see the content, then hit another keyboard shortcut to open it in my browser if I want to reblog it, then go back to ReadKit and delete it from my Pocket account so that doesn’t get cluttered. (You can tell how much I hate Tumblr’s interface that this awkward workflow makes me use Tumblr MORE.) All in all, this is one of those apps I can’t imagine my Mac without.

I have mailed Readkit support several times, no response. Readkit crashes on startup and no longer works.

The app has its merits for great integration of various services especially feedly, however I could tell that this is developed by inexperienced developers who are just learning programming because the app freezes a lot with the more subscriptions. The app shouldnt be freezing at all! Thats a very bad user experience. I shouldnt be waiting for the app to refresh my entire subscriptions in order to start scrolling and reading an article in one. Two stars for the integration and UI.

Just updated the app, which Ive generally been happy with. After a brief message about "updating the database" the app now no longer functions-- or rather, does not show a window and cannot be made to display one.

I used to use NetNewsWire (actually, since it was released originally), but when that program went to poop I started using Vienna. Vienna is great, but lacks one must have feature for me: article counts for smart folders. ReadKit has that and almost every other feature I want. It would be great if it allowed Readability or Web view as the default, and even better if it remembered which to use based on feed (as Vienna does). I prefer Vienna for layout and usability, but article counts for smart folders is must for me, so for now I will use ReadKit.

I use this with Instapaper, Readability, and Pocket. Nice that when my tastes change, I can move all of my articles from one service to another by simple drag and drop! The font I highly recommend to use with this app: Goudy Bookletter 1911. It’s free, just install and configure. The best font I’ve come across for reading on retina screens.

ReadKit works with almost a dozen services, but I was hoping to use it primarily as a RSS/Atom reader, which it does poorly. Most other RSS readers do a better job with invalid RSS, or at least give some warnings, but this failed to properly process some completely valid feeds. If you want an Instapaper client, someone else can tell you if this is any good, but for my use, almost every other feed reader works better.

I use it with Feedly and as a news reader, does everything it needs to do and works very well. The only problem I encountered is that the option to “Enable browser plugins” does not work, or rather the disabling does not work. Flash always loads which is a big pain not only because of ads but also because a lot of Flash is buggy and crashes the reader. ABC News is one such horrible offender. Please fix the plugin support, so that plugins can be properly deactivated.

Youtube videos simply will not play more than a few seconds. They play find when the page is opened in Safari, but what’s the purpose of a RSS reader if I have to leave it to view a video located in an RSS feed?

If you’re looking for a nice RSS reader on your Mac, or perhaps a native app through which you can read your Instapaper qeueue, or maybe you want to finally trim down your unread bookmarks in Pinboard, look no further than Readkit. I love this app. There is no Instapaper app on OS X and despite the number of great Pinboard clients on iOS, there aren’t so many on the Mac. Of course, this isn’t a full-featured Pinboard client, but it is great for handling your unread qeueue alongside your RSS and Instapaper. Create smart folders to organize by account, dates, and of course much much more. Easily share to numerous services and set your own keyboard shortcuts for them. View in Readability view, or Web view. Go into focus mode when you need to concentrate on the words at hand. Readkit supports all of the major RSS services so you probably don’t have to worry about that. I use Feedbin and it’s been great with that. Before a couple months ago, I used Feedly, and it also worked like a charm. Readkit is full of great features for processing your RSS and other sources of unread articles and posts, including Pinboard, Instapaper, and Pocket. It looks nice, it serves its purpose perfectly, and makes it easy to work with, whether you’re trying to get through it quickly, or relax and enjoy some good longform reads. Check it out. It’s worth it!

It used to be good. I stopped using it as an RSS reader, but reinstalled it to use with Instapaper and Readability. Only problem is, I can’t get it to work anymore. My old RSS accounts return to preferences no matter how many times I delete them. The Readkit window never does appear. When I quite the application, I get a “multiple validations errors” message. Then a Readkit popup says “Could not save changes while quitting. Quit anyway?” The app closes whether I click “Cancel” or “Quit anyway.” And when I open it up again, the whole thing starts all over. Unfortunately, I haven’t found another app that syncs with Readability and Instapaper. I’d use Reeder, but that only takes care of half of what I’m looking for. At this point, if I want to read offline, I gotta go to the mobile apps.

Ive had this app for two years. It hangs to the point of being completely unusable.

ReadKit worked perfectly the first year I had it, but after the last update it won’t even open. Instead, an error message that it "suddenly closed” pops up and asks if I want to report it. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times since November to see if anyone has fixed it, but they haven’t and it doesn’t seem like they care too.

This app is pretty good overall and I’ve been using it for a couple of years now. If you want a full-featured RSS news reader, look no further. Very customizable. Cons: Developer does not repsond to feedback, the look and feel has not been updated to Yosemite, scrolling is choppy when an article is previewed within ReadKit.

This is a great app. I like the fact that I can read more than one line of the preview in the center column. Love the syncing with Feedly and other clients. I like the tree structure on the left. I knocked it down one star because there’s no way to set the default reading mode to Readability or browser mode. I have to mouse down and click the little button at the top any time I want to read an article. Not convenient! Please give us this setting in the next update. Seems kind of like a basic setting that it should have offered before most of the other features were added.

The app could use an interface lift to be more in line with Yosemite’s aesthetic but functionally nothing else comes close. It connects to all the services I need and has never hiccuped once.

Hasn’t worked with Instapaper premium account for over a year. Waste of $10.

Although aesthetically, Reeder might have the slight advantage over Readkit (even with the Incorporation theme), it really lacks a killer feature that Readkit provides. Full text search within feed content. Yep, a feature as simple as search is the make-or-break feature that I’ve been looking for. Readkit has it, so it wins in my books. That said, it is a bit slow on my machine - Core i7 4.0GHz with 24GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Not quite sure why that is the case. I have another machine - a Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz with 4GB RAM and a spinner, and the performance is the same as the core i7. So, yeah the problem lies with the app.

I like the look and feel of this app and use it mainly to interface to Feedly. It is much better than just using Feedly online, with one exception. It constantly crashes. Either the Flash plug-in or just freezing/locking in general. I usually get at least one crash per day, but today was the final straw when it crashed three times within 5 minutes. I report it every time, but have not received any updates to this app since….. not sure when it was updated to 2.4.0. I’m going to try Leaf or just stick with the Feedly web interface. Disappointing as this app had a lot of potential. Update: Lowered my rating as after a year of reporting the Flash plug-in crashes, it’s still not fixed. Very annoying so I’m sticking with the web version of Feedly. At least it doesn’t crash all the time. So bummed as this app had so much promise, but w/few updates and then not addressing the biggest bug of all when it is updated, it’s simply unacceptable.

Like another reviewer, I’ve been experiencing very frequent crashes… I’ll have it open anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes, then it’ll die. I’ve tried reinstalling, etc., and the problem persists. We really need a stability update to fix this, ReadKit! Please please please!