Current is a new RSS reader that looks more like a river than an inbox

A new app called Current is rethinking the RSS reader, aiming to deliver a reading experience that feels more like being immersed in a stream of news, and less like a task to be completed. By doing so, the app can make using RSS feeds to consume news and information a more accessible experience for those who do not consume news for work or consider themselves information junkies.

Current developer Terry Godier said he noticed he always felt guilty when returning to his feed reader after a few days. He attributed his feelings to the way most readers are set up to resemble email inboxes, with unread counts, and bold text for new items.

“The number of unread emails means something specific: These are messages from real people who have written to you and, in some cases, are waiting for your response. The number is not neutral information. It is a measure of social debt,” Goodyear wrote in a blog post about how he created Current, a side project he worked on during his free time.

He added: “But when we applied the same visual language to the RSS feed… we imported anxiety for no reason.”

For those unfamiliar, RSS, or Really Simple Subscription, is a format that allows users to access updated information from websites in a structured format. For example, new headlines and articles from your favorite news site will appear as new unread entries in the RSS reader (also known as a news reader or feed reader) of your choice.

This format was hugely popular in the early 2000s until the arrival of Twitter in 2006 which turned people into another platform for sharing real-time news and information. Within a few years, people were ditching Google’s popular RSS reader, Google Reader, in favor of 140-character Twitter posts. After a few more years, Google Reader was shut down for good. (We still miss her.)

But RSS itself is never dead. In addition to being the primary tool for podcast distribution, you can still use the format to share from websites through RSS apps like Feedly, NetNewsWire, Inoreader, Reeder, and others.

However, Current suggests a different RSS experience. Instead of organizing feeds as lists to be processed, or turning unread counts to zero, the app’s home screen is a river.

“You’re not watching content drift by like a screen saver. It’s a river in the important sense: content arrives, stays for a while, and then fades away,” Goodyear wrote.

Each piece of content ages differently, with elements dimming before completely fading away and becoming invisible. Breaking news, for example, stays bright for three hours, while daily news articles may stay on for about 18 hours. Articles stay longer (three days) and articles like Evergreen Tutorials stay in the river for a week. As you scroll through the river, you can keep up with what’s new and interesting without the pressure of marking things as read.

When you set up Current, you can choose one of five speeds for each source: Breaking News, News, Features, Features, or Educational. While you’re reading, you don’t have to actually mark it as read; Instead, all you have to do is push the cards off the screen with a long swipe left, or tap the edit button at the end of the article you’re done with, which takes you back to the river. (There’s also an Undo button.)

Current also offers a number of other smart features that will impress RSS fans.

It can fetch full article text from the web even if the website itself is set to truncate its feeds (as many sites do to incentivize people to visit), and you can tag sources as webcomics to open up an image-first reader experience. You can also mute sources for a week and pin the ones you can’t miss upstream.

The app adds some intelligence to your reading experience, too: If a site is flooding your feed, the app will prompt you to calm it down or set a rate. It also notices when you regularly skip certain content or read it enthusiastically, and will suggest you either remove the feeds you don’t read often or pin the ones you do.

Notably, Current lets you follow individual writers in a space called Voices, which distinguishes blogs or newsletters written by individuals from feeds that belong to larger news publications. You can tap any audio to filter your feed to focus on its content only.

(You can follow individuals within larger publications if their writers have individual RSS feeds. This is mine!)

Goodyear is interested in identifying the voices behind news, having written a specification called Byline that adds author context to RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds.

“Sounds” is just one of three built-in categories, which Current simply calls “Streams” (hence the app’s name). There’s also the main feed or “River” and a “Read Later” category. You can also create your own streams (like “Technology” or “Design,” for example), or wait for the app to suggest some based on your reading patterns.

Overall, the app uses subtle touches and design elements like font choices, gestures, and themes to make the reading experience less stressful. This is something even news junkies can appreciate.

Current is available as a one-time purchase for $9.99 on the Apple App Store for iOS, iPad, and Mac, and includes iCloud Sync and OPML import. There are no in-app purchases or subscriptions. A web version will be available in the future.