Lire – A Full Text RSS Reader for iOS

I’m a big fan of RSS feeds, allowing me to read the content I’m most interested in. I use Inoreader as the service for my RSS, however I’m not a big fan on the app. I’ve used other apps like Fiery Feeds too, and whilst they are great, I’ve found lire1 to be the best match for me. Lire connects to a great collection of RSS services, and the full text extraction that the app offers is better than any other I have used.

Firstly, lets talk about the services that lire connects to. You can choose whether you want to use the app standalone, so that there is no syncing or accounts involved – simply add the feeds to the app. However, note that this means that you won’t get RSS on all your devices. However, you’ll probably be using a RSS service already if you are considering this app, and lire offers many popular services, and they can be seen below:

  • Feedly
  • Inoreader
  • Feedbin
  • Feed Wrangler
  • FeedHQ
  • Newsblur
  • BazQux Reader
  • The Old Reader

I use Inoreader as my syncing service – I really like the statistics it gives you about your reading habits, and I like the ability to filter my feeds.

One of the major disadvantages of RSS feeds is that many of them only show a portion of each entry. This means that you often have to click a ‘read more’ or ‘continue reading’ button that takes you to your browser, and this can be very irritating. However, lire offers an in-app – that doesn’t depend on a third-party service – full text extraction service that shows an article in full text, as it should be viewed.

Left: without full text extract - right: with full text extract
Left: without full text extract – right: with full text extract

The full text extraction works really well, and I haven’t had any issues with it.

Another feature of the app is caching – it allows you to cache all your articles, so you can read all the full text feeds even when your offline – perfect if your about to go on a flight, or if you are going somewhere with bad internet connection. Caching also includes images. You can choose to only use caching when you are connected to WiFi too, so you don’t use up your data.

A unique feature of lire is the in-depth drag and dropping that lire supports. This is done using a floating bar that appears at the bottom of the app when you select items to drag and drop. If you are on iPad, you can drag the selected items over to the other app you are using, however on both iPhone and iPad, you can select the articles and then drop them into the floating bar at the bottom of the app. This opens a menu, and you can select where you would like your selections to go. This works with any app on your device, as the floating bar also makes use of the share sheet that iOS has.

Lire has many other features, including the ability to subscribe to feeds in app, organise your feeds, view the original article (without full text extraction), and much more. This makes it an ideal app for those looking for something that fits in with iOS, and isn’t too complicated – it just works. For those who just want to read feeds in a nice environment, but also be able to save them quickly to a service they use like Instapaper, lire is the perfect choice. For those looking for something more customisable and powerful, Fiery Feeds is also a great iOS RSS reader client.

Lire is £6.99 on the App Store.


  1. The app name isn’t capitalised, so I won’t capitalise it throughout the post.
Advertisement