News Explorer is a full-featured yet easy-to-use RSS, JSON, Atom, Reddit, YouTube, Podcast, Bluesky and Mastodon news reader with iCloud synchronization between Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV.
Full iCloud Sync
• News Explorer syncs your feeds, filters, folders, articles including statuses, notes and tags, across all your Apple devices.
• Synchronization is based on iCloud, so there is no need to login or to sign up into any other service, it just works out of the box.
Smart Filters
• Filter your news according your own conditions and preferences, easily accessible from the feeds list.
• Filters customizations are synced across all your devices.
Automatic Reader View
• Use automatic Reader view to download and read the full text version of truncated articles from supported sources.
• News Explorer makes use of multiple parsers to offer the best Reader view results.
Article Comments
• Read article comments from other readers directly in the app.
• Works with RSS feeds that has comment feeds per article, YouTube feeds, Reddit feeds and Hacker News feeds.
• Also works with most feeds from websites that use Open Web comments.
Article Notes
• Create rich text notes, directly in the context of the article.
• Notes are synced via iCloud together with the related article.
Feed Settings
• All aspects of a feed like title, source link or icon, can be adjusted in the Feed settings dialog.
• Disable the feed temporarily or permanently.
• Override app settings for syncing, downloading comments and reading articles.
Feed Prefilters
• Prevent the app from downloading articles you don’t want to see or read.
• Prefilters are synced via iCloud, and can be easily configured on feed level in the Feed settings dialog.
Article Inspector
• Inspect metadata, tags, media, notes and comments of articles in the Inspector panel.
• View and add custom tags in the Metadata panel.
• Browse and download media, including podcasts, in the Media panel.
Article Tags
• Article categories of RSS articles are displayed in the Inspector panel as tags.
• Can be extended with your own tags.
• Custom tags are easily recognizable, and are synced via iCloud.
• Tags can be used as conditions in filters.
Local Account
• Add feeds to News Explorer that only exists on your device by activating the Local account option.
• The local account option can be used in addition to or instead of syncing with iCloud.
Reading Features
• Mark items as favorite for later reading.
• Navigate with one click to the original content.
• Full keyboard navigation.
• Full text search in the List and Timeline view.
• Mark as read while scrolling option.
• Image viewer to browse through all images of articles or feeds.
• Built-in sharing to Instapaper, Raindrop and Readwise.
• Share news items via Email, Messages and other services.
Configuration Features
• Countless settings to tweak layout, fonts, behaviors and more.
• Import and export feeds via OPML.
• Add new feeds via the Search new feeds or Add feed dialogs.
• Organize your feeds by assigning them to folders.
• Multiple themes, tint colors and app icons.
System Features
• Create automations with News Explorer actions in the Shortcuts app.
• Option to index articles with Spotlight.
• Local notifications for feeds selected in the Feeds Manager.
• Widgets with adjustable sources and fonts.
Multi Platform
You only need to buy two apps to cover all Apple platforms:
• News Explorer for Mac is available on the Mac App Store.
• News Explorer for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV is a universal purchase app, available on the App Store of the mentioned devices. On visionOS you can use the iPadOS edition of News Explorer.
Support
• News Explorer has an extensive help page on https://betamagic.nl/support/newsexplorer/help.html.
• If you still have questions or need support, email us at support@betamagic.nl.
If you like News Explorer then feel free to leave a review or a rating in the App Store, it helps us a lot!
Ive used many a reader, some really good, some not. But all of them annoyed me in one way or another.Not This one.(If you don’t want to read whole review, just buy the app, you won’t regret it).I was using Feedly with Reeder, pretty good, pretty annoying also. Now Feedly are asking for a subscription to add more feeds, not a chance. The app’s not good enough anyway, but now you want me to pay money to use something that annoys me?!? Nope.When I first saw this app, with the price tag, it put me off (why pay when so many free options?!). But I was getting so fed up with the others, I thought I’d give it a shot. And that’s when I realised why I’m paying, you pay for what you get & It’s worth every penny.I love it. Really easy (and nice) to use, looks great & you can customise the look to suit your taste. It seems quite simple at first glance, but simple and effective is always the best combo, and the developers absolutely nailed it (congrats!). Adding new feeds, reading, favouriting and sharing articles. So simple and genuinely enjoyable to use. I’ve already recommended this app to quite a few people and will continue to do so!It’s so good that I’ll be purchasing the desktop application also, which is more expensive than the mobile, but it’s worth it to me for 2 reasons....the developers deserve to be paid & I want the same ease of use on my laptop!!The only thing I don’t like about it, is the app icon!! For such a lovely app, the icon just doesn’t do it justice! Please make a nicer one devs!! Easy 5*. Would be 6* if the icon was different 😉
Excellent standalone RSS feed reader
daniel.gomes
I was using the equally brilliant "Unread" app for RSS feed reading together with a Feedbin account for the syncing. But paying a subscription for Feedbin when I’m already paying for iCloud storage seems like a waste of money. Google searches for iCloud-enabled RSS readers eventually turned up this app, so I took a chance and bought it. I’m glad to report that it works very well and sync works perfectly. The reading experience is very good and has all the features I typically look for. I promptly cancelled Feedbin and feel confident that this app will meet my needs just as well, for a fraction of the cost.The iPad Pro and iPhone are my main computers so I don’t need the Mac app at the moment but if you do, it’s apparently excellent as well.
Fantastic piece of software. Could it look better?
JoWilNo
Having been an avid RSS user since forever I’ve tried a lot of different software but had been stuck on Reeder the last few years. Then on attempting to do some newsreading on my Apple Watch I came across News Explorer and ponied up. It gets 5 stars for flexibility - you can read on your Apple Watch and Apple TV! And there are lots of pleasing customisation options. But visually it doesn’t seem as well designed as Reeder. And I wish I could customise the font used in the main UI listing screens (you can in the actual articles). Or at least there should be some options as to weight of text. At moment it’s very heavy looking, which makes it feel a bit old fashioned. With a bit of a design spruce this would be the RSS king.
Google News
Gary936
This app has worked perfectly for me until last week when Google News has seized control of my searches listed under “Donald Trump”. The app still shows that is collecting items on Mr Trump, but clicking on an item takes me to a frozen Google News page which doesn’t include items on the subject I’m looking for. Perhaps the developer can check to see what is going on and I can give the app, the Stars it deserves.I’m pleased that the developer has looked into my problem. It appears to be a problem with Google news. The developer has provided me with a way to overcome it. Full marks with a speedy reply, I will reinstate the five stars.
Developer Response
Google is clearly messing around with their RSS support for Google News. Most Google News RSS feeds do now contain non-working links. However, this alternative URL still works: https://news.google.com/news/rss/search/section/q/Donald+Trump?ned=us&gl=US&hl=en
• Fixed parsing Bluesky feeds containing posts with the recently introduced image carousel feature.
Version 2.2.11
The developer, Ron Elemans, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Privacy practices may vary based, for example, on the features you use or your age. Learn More
The developer indicated that this app supports the following accessibility features. Learn More