Reeder, developed by Silvio Rizzi, is an iPhone app that integrates with Google Reader. It shines in just about every area that counts: syncing, sharing, and reading. I am the type of person that keeps a pretty healthy amount of feeds in my Google Reader, so an app that enhances that experience is a godsend. Reeder is that app.

Let me just get this out of the way: Reeder only syncs with Google Reader, this is its Achilles Heel. If you do not use Google Reader than you cannot use Reeder. Period. For many people this will be a non-starter. However, if you do use Google Reader then I believe that there is no better way to interface with it from an iPhone or iPad. On with the good stuff.

Sharing. Reeder supports an unnecessary amount of online services. You can share to Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Pinboard, Zootool (?), Instapaper, Read It Later, and Readability. In addition you can open links to the article in Safari, copy them, mail them, mail full articles, and get Google or Instapaper mobilized versions of the article. You can also share the item with Google Reader and add a note. The shear number of services that Reeder lets you pass news items through can be overwhelming. Luckily the app is easily customizable to show only those services you want to see.

Just having this number of supported services might be enough for some developers, but Rizzi has gone farther. If you share the article with Twitter, it will automatically shorten the link using your preferred link shortener. Share it with Facebook and you can add your comment before it hits your News Feed. One of the killer features for me is headline sliding. Let me explain: While you are in list view you can slide the headline to the left or right. Slide to the right marks the article as read without having to view the full article. Slide the left and the article text is either starred, sent to Instapaper, Readability, or Read It Later. I have my Reeder set-up to send articles to Instapaper. This comes in handy when you only have a few minutes to scan the headlines. After using this feature for the better part of six months, I cannot imagine using a feed reader that doesn’t include this functionality. 

Syncing. This is pretty straightforward. Reeder syncs with Google Reader: it syncs your read, unread, starred, and shared articles. When Reeder syncs with Google Reader, it caches everything locally so you can read without an internet connection. One thing that I discovered is that Reeder syncs twice: the first time it syncs only the text, the second time it syncs it syncs and caches photos. This makes the syncing process feel instantaneous. When you open the app it only takes a few seconds before you are able to start reading, sharing, and marking items as read. 

Reading. As a reading environment, this app is cleanly designed. The background and text colors are easy on the eyes. The typography lends itself to reading on the small screen. Reeder really makes it a delight to read on the iPhone. While you are viewing a news item you can use the arrow navigation buttons to move to the previous or next item. On the iPad in portrait mode you can swipe to the left or right as well. Sadly, this functionality hasn’t made its way to the iPhone. 

Overall, Reeder is the RSS reader on both the iPhone and iPad. I have found no easier way to sync, read, and share my Google Reader items. One last downside: this app is not universal; you must pay for both the iPhone and iPad versions separately. Personally, I was more than happy to do this; I like this app so much even bought a copy for a friend of mine.