Reeder ($4.99) set the standard for Google Reader clients on iOS in 2010, but it has since struggled to match the best of its competition in innovation and design. That doesn’t stop it from being a stellar RSS reader, however. It presents your feeds in an attractive, minimal design that sports all the features you’d expect -- minus customizability.

Mr Reader ($3.99) has usurped Reeder as the de facto iPad Google Reader app. It follows the traditional RSS model of a column of feeds on the left -- sorted and managed manually -- and a column of stories on the right, plus has loads of options for changing appearance and setting up services and sounds. The app is smooth and responsive, with some neat gesture support.

River of News (Free) offers a continuous stream of articles from each feed that you can scroll through, blogroll-style, with standard RSS navigation options in a sidebar or menu (depending on iPad orientation). It still has a few bugs, but River of News is a great reader for actually reading (but not so much for skimming) feeds. An in-app purchase of $2.99 removes ads and enables sharing.

The mega-popular social news app Flipboard’s (Free) conception of a personalized magazine has earned major plaudits since its initial release in late 2010. It aggregates stories shared by your friends, Google Reader feeds, and thousands of other people, all optimized for an elegant magazine-style layout that you flip through. It's effectively social news with an RSS component.

You can subscribe to individual feeds in Zite (Free), but the app is better suited to following topics, of which there are 40,000 to choose from. It learns what you like, from social feeds and reading habits, and serves up relevant content in a magazine-style format. Whereas Flipboard most strongly highlights what others like, Zite focuses more on personal news curation.

Pulse (Free) features specially-formatted feeds from a few hundred of the most popular blogs and news sites across 13 broad categories, which you can sort into custom lists or pages. You can also import feeds from your Google Reader account. There are “Best of” feeds for the most popular stories on Pulse, and you can sync your sources across devices.

Feedly (Free) combines the stack model of computing with a magazine-style layout, dark or light themes, and a cleaner Google Reader experience. Choosing between mosaic, magazine, list, or card view, you get a sleek and fast RSS reader that’s a fantastic free alternative to the likes of Reeder and Newsify.

The Early Edition 2 ($4.99) turns your RSS feeds into a daily newspaper, laying them out neatly in sections that correspond to folders in your Google Reader account. You can also use it as a conventional RSS reader, viewing feeds in a list, and add any number of featured feeds. It supports OPML importing via the web, along with the standard array of social and read-it-later services.

Similar to Feedly, Newsify ($0.99) displays your feeds in an uncluttered, newspaper-like layout that you can scroll through. It’s fast and customizable (with a night mode), and has a wealth of sharing and reformatting options. Consider whether Newsify will fill your RSS needs before splashing the cash on pricier alternatives.

Reader X ($2.99) looks a bit like a day planner, but it’s actually a cleverly-designed RSS reader, with your feeds presented on a wallpaper-like grid of horizontal stripes with items in small boxes. Stories are color-coded by newness and read/unread/starred status. The app’s unique approach takes some getting used to, but it’s worth that initial investment.