Taptu is a free online RSS feed reader that also has apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Nook. Taptu's identifying feature is that it combines RSS with a magazine-like layout and the option to include feed content from big-name media outlets and your own private social media streams (similar to Feedly, Flipboard for iPad, and the like). You can add vertical columns that hold customized feed streams, much in the way Tweetdeck lets you sort your feeds and alerts into columns. Taptu offers a few great customization features, including the ability to color-code feeds. But the service has wrinkles, enough to put me off from using it as my replacement to Google Reader (I chose G2Reader for personal use). If you like magazine-style content and are stuck on having native mobile apps, though, Taptu could be the right way to go.

Signing Up

Using Taptu requires integrating it with an existing account: Google, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. I'm completely turned off by services that don't allow a simple email or username and password sign up, seeing as I don't know exactly how much of my personal information the service is going to take from my other accounts.

To test the app, I caved and gave it access to my Google account. It connected to find my Google Reader data, although it doesn't automatically display it. Rather, Taptu has you build your feed display from a long list of options, which include an existing Google Reader material you may have, but also incorporates news sites, online magazines, and a whole host of options. You end up selecting which feeds from all these choices you'd like to see in your primary display area. Each item can be color-coded, a nice touch in my book, although folder organization is missing entirely. Instead, you have vertical columns of streams, and my only problem with that is they are harder to organize and see at a glance than a simple folder with items inside it.

Visuals
Taptu definitely has a flashier look than simple RSS feed readers such as The Old Reader, G2Reader, Feedly, or SwarmIQ. It's much more akin in design to something like Flipboard or Pulse.

I can appreciate that some people prefer a graphically rich design, but I almost think of products like these as being something different than RSS feed readers. While I enjoy Flipboard for browsing leisurely from time to time, that's not how I interact with RSS feed content, which instead keeps me abreast of trends. I tend to follow blogs primarily, and I watch a few news sites but mostly to browse headlines, wherein the simplicity of RSS makes sense. I'd rather see a few lines of text when scrolling headlines than glance at inches upon inches of highly designed graphics.

Another flaw: Taptu shows you two share buttons, one at the top left on the banner bar (see the slideshow), and one on the top right of each post, which makes it confusing to know what exactly you might be sharing from the leftmost button. (Answer: Despite their different locations, the both only share the immediate post.)

While testing the app in the Chrome Web browser on Mac OS X, I hit a few instances of buggy displays when trying to connect to my social media feeds (see the slideshow for an example). A pop-up display looked like it was supposed to prompt me to sign into the account in question, but it showed up (multiple times) as translucent or not fully rendered.

These are the kinds of issues and inconsistencies that need to be ironed out before I would seriously consider using Taptu on a regular basis.

Is Taptu for You?

Taptu can't import OPML files, and that was as big a turn-off for me as the inability to sign up using a username and password. A spokesperson from Taptu confirmed that users will not be able to import Google Reader data after July 1, and it's not clear to me whether existing Google Reader integration will continue to work either (it all depends on whether Taptu is pulling data from your Google account all the time or if Taptu imported the data behind the scenes for you).

The free service offers plenty, and could make for a great app to have if you like magazine-style content and exploring online articles more than browsing top headlines and trends from your own tightly managed set of feeds. I also like that Taptu really pushed mobile apps to market, as an increasing number of users rely on their mobile devices more than desktop and laptop computers. Taptu needs to focus more on fixing and improving what it already has on offer rather than beefing up new tools and features. There's still a good deal of ironing that needs to be done, particularly with the interface, to make Taptu more usable and straightforward.