When major events like CES roll around, we all go through News Overload – an incessant barrage of articles, from multiple sites, most of which are repetitions of each other. In such situations, going through my news feed isn't just a chore, it's borderline impossible. Enter Reconnaissance, a feed reading app for FeedWrangler. Its unique way of handling the litany of news stories I get on a daily basis (but especially during CES-like events) is what made me pick it out of the crowd.
Think of Reconnaissance as the Triage of the feed reading world – allowing you to quickly go through a large number of articles and dismissing them, or sending them to your favourite read it later service. It's an absolute godsend for those of us who find only one time in the day to catch up on the news of the day, and who, therefore, need to prioritise.
Reconnaissance has a very simple interface – news is presented in a card-style view, and can be scrolled through. Images, if allowed to load, are in greyscale to speed up loading, and just the headline and a small portion of the news (depending on the website's rules for RSS) is displayed, allowing you to quickly decide whether it matters to you or not. Marking an article as read is as simple as swiping the card upwards in 'Swipe' mode, or by scrolling past it in 'Scroll' mode. Swipe downwards, and Reconnaissance will send the article to Safari Reading List, Instapaper, Pocket or Pinboard, whichever is marked as default. All features of the FeedWrangler API, such as the ability to add, update or delete subscriptions, Starred Articles, Smart Streams and Search (including Search for items not downloaded to your iPhone) are included in the app. There is also a nice Dark Mode, which renders your news in a dark, slate grey with blue highlights. The app also has a smorgasbord of customisations available, including URL schemes, thereby making it a treat for the geeks among us. Other iOS 7 features, such as dynamic type and background updates, also make it into the app.
However, Reconnaissance hasn't been able to make me remove Reeder from my iPhone. If I actually want to READ the news, it isn't as intuitive. Triaging is effortless, but actual news consumption is still a bit off, requiring me to load most news articles using the in-app browser. Also, greyscale images, while very useful for those items which I want to dismiss or read later, don't look good in the article view. I love the concept behind the app, and I use it daily, but only when there are a lot of articles I have to get through. Otherwise, my default app for reading news remains Reeder.
A FeedWrangler account ($19/year) is mandatory to use Reconnaissance, which is available for $1.99 on the app store.