Dear Aunt TUAW: RSS in the clouds

Byline all the way, its intelligent caching options are essential for me.

Hi Everyone... "Cousin Erik" here. Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, it looks like most of the ideas being tossed around are based on Google Reader. I understand that a lot of people like Google Reader, but (as I said earlier) I find it very lacking for how I consumer RSS feeds. I'd be happy to give Google Reader (and the products that plug into it) another look if anyone can tell me how to do the following:

1. Create folders where I can file news articles I want to save.

2. Delete articles (read or unread) that I don't want to save.

That's all! See, how I currently consume news... My RSS feeds get pulled by Apple's Mail client. I have "smart folders" that aggregate the feeds into four topics (News, Technology, The Topic of My Graduate Desertion, Other). I have mail folders on my MobileMe account for various topics I find interesting or otherwise want to save. I look into each of the "smart folders". Headlines that look uninteresting get deleted without being read. Headlines that look interesting get read and then either deleted or filed in one of the MobileMe folders. All I want is to be able to do this from my iPad (and maybe my BlackBerry or my WinXP work computer) as well as from my Mac, and to have the changes sync'd instantly... hence, I'm looking for something in the cloud.

All that said, any suggestions? (And, please... I get that a lot of you LOVE your Google Reader... If you're going to just tell me "use Google Reader"... at least tell me how I can use it the way I want to!)

Thanks!

Erik

Netvibes: http://netvibes.com

Access from any browser, remember what you've read.

Perfick

http://img.skitch.com/20100917-jgstwd16t1ykw22tqam88x3rhh.png

This is how I saw this Dear Aunt TUAW (top centre in the screenshot above)

I'm also curious what the poster has against google reader. I love love love it on the desktop. It's "ok" on the iphone, but I really have a lot more content in it that I would want to read on my iphone, but it works fine.

I know you said you disliked Google Reader. But really, consider Reeder. I syncs with Google Reader and is wonderful to browse through.

Another vote for

Google reader

Gruml on the Mac
MobileRSS on iPhone
MobileRSS HD on iPad

Unbeatable combination. Switched to Google Reader after NetNewsWire switched from using Newsgator and the Googlified app was riddled with bugs making it unusable (endless UI weirdness).

Used to use NetNewsWire on my MBP and my iPhone, but I've dumped it on both platforms. On the Mac: Google Reader website in Safari 5 with the Google Reader Styles and GReader extensions. Combine those with Safari's Reader feature, and I have the best RSS combo I have ever used. On the iPhone: Google Reader in Mobile Safari. Sure, the type can be a bit small for long reading, but I can always just mark an article unread and read it when I get to my MBP. I really liked how NNW would do text for articles where it showed all the text, but with no "Mark as Unread" option, it made article management a pain. And the fact all of these solutions are built into my devices or can be added for free? Priceless!

Can Erik clarify why he thinks Google Reader is "lacking" ? What exactly does it not do?

MobileRSS for iPad is excellent. It syncs with Google Reader, you can manage feeds and star articles, and you can share via email, facebook, or twitter. They have a lot of other syncing options too, such as Instapaper. It used to be pretty buggy, but they just did a major update and it works great now. My favorite thing is that it plays videos right within the app on the article page so it feels like you're reading a futuristic newspaper.

They also have a free, ad-supported iPhone version too.

I use Google Reader and MobileRSS and as many others allready have said,it's a great combination!