Google Reader is a very useful service for consuming your news feeds (assuming you still use RSS), but it lives in the browser, which means it doesn’t the responsiveness and polish of a desktop app. For all those Mac users out there looking for the best of both worlds, I present to you Gruml, a new desktop Google Reader application.
Gruml is a lightweight application that sits in your dock and menu bar, and gives you all of your RSS goodness. What’s great about Gruml is that it brings a lot of the features in Google Reader that we’ve come to know and love and brings them into the desktop client, including features like starring, “liking,” and sharing posts (with notes and tags), and reading headlines that friends share with you.
And for those Twitterholics out there who need to tweet their news, Gruml comes with Twitter support, allowing you to tweet articles (converted to short URLs) directly from the app.
It’s important to note that Gruml is still in beta, and has its faults, like running slowly on startup, and missing some settings in the preferences menu. But overall, it’s a great application that runs well and shows promise.
Note that NetNewsWire, a RSS client for Mac OS has recently added a Google Reader synchronization function. Not that I use it, I prefer to keep my data to myself !
also note that they also provide an iPhone app that will sync the your google reader acct (once they release the new update in a week or two)
I hope you do know that the NewsGator sync will be discontinued from August 31, 2009 (not sure if they changed the date).
Gruml– what a nice app.
Gruml is still in beta, and has its faults, like running slowly on startup, and missing some settings in the preferences menu. But overall, it’s a great application that runs well and shows promise.
>>>>> Gruml a good initiative from Google. Though missing complete performance, it is working well and hope Google would improvise the lags and provide a fulfilled APP.
Das ganze erinnert mich an Thunderbird.
Eine sinnvolle Alternative wie ich finde.
Wow. Fabulous! I’m gonna try it right now!
Fantastic. I created my own some time ago using fluid – but a native app – so cool.
about damn time for the crapintosh
Aleluia brother…
I saw you had a screenshot of this application on your Posterous once. I was wondering what app it was. Thanks for pointing it out. Works really well. Though, I don’t use RSS very much anymore.
what do you use, instead of RSS?
I saw you had a screenshot of this application on your Posterous once. I was wondering what app it was. Thanks for pointing it out. Works really well. Though, I don’t use RSS very much anymore.
Yay. Ditching NetNewsWire, at least until they get more Google Reader goodness going (likes, sharing, etc)
To Author:
The word ‘have’ is missing.
“Google Reader is a very useful service for consuming your news feeds (assuming you still use RSS), but it lives in the browser, which means it doesn’t ‘HAVE’ the responsiveness and polish of a desktop app.”
I’ve been using this since yesterday. I do not quite like the ‘busy’ interface (like, shared, starred etc). IMO, NetNewsWire has better UI. So, I guess I’ll stick with NNW. But, it’s good that NNW now has competition.
Don’t see what’s wrong with Google Reader in the browser. How much “responsiveness” do people need from an RSS reader?? I have Google Reader on my iPhone, and even that’s enough for most of my info porn consumption.
There’s are already two very similar multi-platform apps (built with Adobe AIR) – ReadAir, which also happens to be open-source, and EspressoNewsReader.
I’ve installed it and it works perfect! I love it!
Why not just use Apple mail as an RSS reader. That’s pretty good, IMHO.
works like a motherfucker. loads quickly, new tabbed a Digg article without crashing (all the comments too). three thumbs and a pinky toe up.
I’m still confused. Is it a desktop app just for the purpose of being a desktop app? What are the differentiators that will make Google Reader users ditch the website?
I guess the fact that someone makes software for the Mac is front page news?
What’s that? Oh I get it, it’s supposed to be a joke.
Great comeback. I thought Mac lovers were supposed to “creative”? LOL
supposed to BE “creative”….
Arrrg, this thing doesn’t let you edit comments!
coool
Ditching NNW….
I love feedly…beautiful interface… http://www.feedly.com
Got to love the native Mac apps, though
I like the thought of having a native app for Google Reader as I’m a frequent user of it and definitely feel that it could use the polish of being on the desktop. However, Gruml seems to have quite a ways to go.
On my first impression, it seems that the interface was something that was designed by an engineer. It has a very stale inbox feel to requiring more clicks than is necessary. This is where the Reader interface was thought through a little more. Clicking on a feed shows all the feed items (thus requiring one less click). It makes browsing a bunch of feeds much more efficient.
With that said, I’m looking forward to Gruml improving over time and will check it out on the next major iteration.
I can’t believe you would even reference that ridiculous, “rss is dead” article. The comments in that article are dead on (along with the comments of this one as futher proof). This site has simply become a source of flame bait. Congrats.
Just tried it. Looked up a brand new MBP.
I didn’t really like the interace either. Google Reader is good enough as is.
Maybe I’ll wait for the non-beta.
Excited to check this out, but it’s barely a beta. Shows promise, but the lack of automatic offline reading is ridiculous.
Why bother when you can use feedly?
Many Mac users do not use Firefox (including me).
Any offline feature ?
Ok! Just read that NetNewsWire will be charging $9.95 to get rid of those annoying ads.
http://www.news...nsumerinfo.aspx
I think Gruml looks a lot more appealing now!
They just need to make an RSS client for Google Reader like Mailplane is for GMail.