Skim Reader vs Heaps Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Skim Reader
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Skim Reader: Read Smarter, Not Longer In a world of infinite scroll and endless content, your time is the ultimate currency. Skim Reader is the RSS reader that respects it. The Problem With Modern Reading You subscribe to 30 feeds. You have 200 unread articles. You have 10 minutes. What do you do? Skip everything? Skim headlines and miss the insights buried in paragraph seven? Feel guilty about the growing unread count? There's a better way. One Slider. Infinite Control. Skim Reader introduces something no RSS reader has done before: a compression slider that transforms any article to match exactly how much time you have. Drag left for a two-sentence summary. Drag right for the full article. Stop anywhere in between. It's that simple. - Glance: The headline in 10 seconds - Brief: Key points in 30 seconds - Summary: Main ideas in 2 minutes - Digest: Detailed overview in 5 minutes - Full: The complete article Every position is generated by on-device AI. No cloud. No subscriptions. No data leaving your phone. AI That Lives on Your Device Skim Reader runs a state-of-the-art language model entirely on your iPhone or iPad. Your articles stay private. The first time you open the app, you'll download a ~1GB AI model. After that, everything runs locally. Your reading habits are yours alone. It Learns How You Read Notice how you always want the full article from The New York Times but just the brief from tech blogs? Skim Reader notices too. The app quietly learns your preferences - by feed, by time of day, by habit. Open an article at 7am during your commute? It remembers you prefer Brief. Saturday morning deep-dive? It knows you want Full. You can disable this entirely in settings. But once you experience an app that just knows, you won't want to. Beautiful Typography, Zero Compromise Reading apps should be beautiful. Skim Reader uses carefully chosen typefaces optimised for extended reading: - New York for headlines - editorial elegance - Charter for body text - designed for screens - Your choice of fonts and sizes - Bionic Reading mode for faster scanning - Light and dark themes that don't strain your eyes Features That Matter - Add any RSS or Atom feed - paste a URL and it finds the feed - Full article extraction - even when feeds only provide snippets - Swipe gestures - mark read, bookmark, delete - All Articles view - see everything in one stream - Bookmarks - save articles for later - Pull to refresh - stay current - Open in browser - when you need the original - Haptic feedback - feel the slider snap into position No Subscriptions. No Ads. No Tracking. Skim Reader is free. No monthly fees. No "premium tiers." No advertisements. No analytics watching what you read. Who Is This For? - Professionals who need to stay informed but don't have time to read everything - Researchers managing dozens of sources - News enthusiasts who want depth without the time commitment - Anyone tired of the "mark all as read" guilt spiral - People who believe reading should be a choice, not an obligation The TL;DR for a Doomscrolling World I built Skim Reader because I was drowning in content. Every day, more articles. Every day, less time. I wanted a reader that adapted to me, not the other way around. Now I read more than ever - because I can finally read at the right depth for every article. Some get 10 seconds. Some get 10 minutes. Every one gets exactly what it deserves. Your time is valuable. Read accordingly.
Heaps Reader
Organize and consume RSS feeds and podcasts with a unique swipe-based interface. Enjoy distraction-free reading, article summaries, and offline podcast playback. Seamlessly manage subscriptions and discover content.
- Swipe-based article triage
- Reader mode for distraction-free reading
- Article summaries with Apple Intelligence
- Podcast player with offline downloads
- Organize feeds into colorful collections
- iCloud sync across devices
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Heaps is an RSS and podcast reader for iPhone built around one idea: getting through your feeds should feel good. Organize your subscriptions into colorful collections called Heaps. Pick from 40 colors and custom icons to make each one yours. Then swipe through articles like a deck of cards — left to skip, right to save, up to mark as read. Or simply tap to read now. A progress bar shows how far you've got to go, haptic feedback keeps every gesture satisfying, and an undo stack means you'll never accidentally lose something. When you tap into an article, you choose how to read it. Reader mode strips away ads and trackers while giving you a clean, formatted experience. Browser mode loads the full site and keeps you logged in to paywalled publishers, so you don't re-enter credentials every visit. If you're short on time, article summaries powered by Apple Intelligence give you the gist in seconds. Podcasts live alongside your feeds, too!. Search, subscribe, adjust playback speed, queue up episodes, and download for offline listening — all without leaving the app. Oh, and Ben the Sheep lives in the app too! He's always there to show you around and cheer you on. Key features: Swipe-based card interface for fast article triage Reader mode for clean, distraction-free articles Browser mode with persistent logins for paywalled sites Article summaries powered by Apple Intelligence Podcast player with speed controls and offline downloads Save articles and clips to a personal library Mute words to hide topics you don't care about iCloud sync across devices with no accounts needed Background refresh so new articles are ready when you open the app Import and export via OPML Subscribe to RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds. Follow your favorite blogs, newspapers, and indie publishers. Keep your podcasts in the same place. Heaps makes all of it feel like one smooth workflow.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Heaps Reader at every 2 days against Skim Reader's monthly. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Skim Reader ships an update monthly, Heaps Reader every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Skim Reader | Heaps Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | — | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 12 MB | 28 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Lucas Young | Zachary Brown |
In-app purchases
Skim Reader
No in-app purchases
Heaps Reader
No in-app purchases









