In the convivial range. Of the six balances: 1 tipping, 5 holding. Position 53 of 100.
- Biological degradation Holds Does this tool damage the living world, or the body, faster than either can recover? Holds: the tool does not cause this problem.
- Radical monopoly Holds Can people still meet the need another way, without this tool? Holds: the tool does not cause this problem.
- Overprogramming Holds Does using this tool require training or certification that people cannot give each other? Holds: the tool does not cause this problem.
- Polarization Holds Does this tool move power or advantage to a few, at others’ cost? Holds: the tool does not cause this problem.
- Obsolescence Tipping Does this tool force people to replace what still works? Tipping: the tool has begun to cause this problem, without going past the limit.
- Frustration Holds Does this tool give back less than it takes, counting everything it takes? Holds: the tool does not cause this problem.
What it does
Collects the feeds you choose and shows them as a river that fades with time, instead of an inbox to clear.
Where it stops
At the end of each article’s lifespan. It has no unread count, no ranking, and no tracking.
How easily you can stop using it
Export your subscriptions as OPML and take them to any other reader. The app itself is closed-source, so it cannot be repaired by its users.
What is scored
- The unit: One program, Current, by one developer, as released for Apple devices in February 2026. Left out: RSS itself, which is an open standard, and other feed readers. Two of the scores turn on Apple’s platform, which Current depends on but does not control.
- The job it is tested against: Collecting the feeds a person chooses and showing them. It does this reliably.
- Where and when: The 2026 release. All six balances are assessed.
Current is an RSS reader for iPhone, iPad, and Mac by Terry Godier, released in February 2026. It is in the catalogue because it was designed against a habit most feed readers share: treating every article as an item in an inbox that you owe it to yourself to clear. Godier, whose writing is on our Reading list, traces the unread count back to NetNewsWire in 2002, “a pragmatic design decision that calcified into convention,” and names the feeling it creates “phantom obligation.”
How it works
Current has no unread count; “counting was the problem,” Godier writes. Articles appear in a river and fade out after a lifespan you set for each source, from three hours for breaking news to days for slower writing. Personal blogs can be marked as “voices” and read in their own timeline: “You don’t subscribe to a person. You follow a voice.” Topic and story grouping run on the device, and Godier says that “nothing leaves your phone.” The App Store listing reports no data collected and no tracking.
It sells for a one-time price with no subscription or in-app purchases, and it works with your own RSS service (Feedbin, Inoreader, Miniflux, FreshRSS, and others) or runs locally with iCloud sync. Subscriptions come in and go out as OPML, the standard file format for feed lists.
The six balances
Scored as set out in How to evaluate tools. It reliably does its job, so it starts in the convivial range.
- Biological degradation: 0. The balance holds. It runs on devices people already own, so it adds almost no cost of its own. The cost of those devices is scored with the smartphone.
- Radical monopoly: 0. It is one reader among many for an open standard, and your subscriptions leave with you as OPML.
- Overprogramming: 0. It was built to remove a learned obligation, not to add one. There is no algorithmic ranking; the order is chronological.
- Polarization: 0. It is available only on recent Apple systems (iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 or later), so it is closed to everyone else. That limits who can use it, but it does not move power or advantage to a few at others’ cost, so the balance holds. Its dependence on one platform is scored under obsolescence.
- Obsolescence: 1. It is closed-source and tied to Apple’s update cycle, so its life depends on one developer and one platform. Leaving is easy; repairing it is not possible.
- Frustration: 0. It was built to lift a burden, the guilt of an unread count, and it asks little that it does not give back.
Where the threshold falls
In the convivial range. One of the six balances is tipping, so its position is 50 + 3 = 53. The river is not for everyone: Jason Snell, who reads once each morning, “bounced right off of it,” because it suits people who check several times a day. That is a fit question, not a threshold one.
Open questions
- If Current stopped being developed, how much of what makes it different would survive in other readers?
- Is a fading river a tool people control, or a different default chosen for them? The half-life is set per source by the reader, which suggests the former.
Sources
- Canion, Andrew. “App Review: Current.” canion.blog, February 18, 2026. https://canion.blog/2026/02/18/app-review-current.html.
- “Current – RSS Feed Reader.” App Store listing. Accessed October 5, 2026. https://apps.apple.com/app/current-reader/id6758530974.
- Godier, Terry. “Current.” terrygodier.com, 2026. https://www.terrygodier.com/current.
- Snell, Jason. “Rethinking RSS, Newsletters, and How I Read Every Morning.” Six Colors, April 8, 2026. https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/04/rethinking-rss-newsletters-and-how-i-read-every-morning/.