Android News
Google Reader Android App. Go get it.
December 1, 2010 | by Andrew Kameka
Android Apps
Google has released an official Android app for its RSS client. More than two years after Android debuted – and about the same amount of time that I’ve been screaming for this to happen – Google has finally released an app for people who use Google Reader as their primary source of news tracking.
The Google Reader web app was a decent solution for many, but others have requested a direct, native app for Reader. The new app uses the standard design of light colors, browsing by feed or category, seeing unread or all items, and supports Starred items. You’ll also be able to see items shared by people that you follow, have multiple accounts, and search within items.
There are still plenty of third-party options out there worth checking out, but it’s nice to finally see an app from Google. Download from the Android Market to check it out now. Let us know if it’s good enough to make you switch or if you’ll stick with your current Greed, Feedr, NewsRob, etc. set-up. And of course, be sure you’ve got our article feed in your Google Reader: http://feeds.feedburner.com/androinica
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From Google: A couple harder to discover features we’d like to highlight:
- Volume-key navigation: if you enable this in the settings, you can navigate by using your phone’s volume keys for next and previous
- Long-press on a folder or subscription to bring up a contextual menu that lets you rename, unsubscribe or change folders
- If you hit the menu key on an individual item, you can use the “send” feature which integrates with other apps on your phone to send the item using any 3rd party app
via AndroidCentral
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Not seeing it on the Market (using Samsung Vibrant).
so far so good. Seems a little sluggish, but that could just be my mobi ATM.
settings are pretty basic. It has the same sync function as email and other Google programs, so I'm not sure what the bat life will be like… especially since I typically check the reader manually when traveling (not automatically / using my desktop elsewhere)
Don't see a "share with note", which I typically use as a two in one function (as opposed to note and share)… but that can be added. Clean looking. It would be nice if it removed all the extra garbage from most posts, but we'll see.
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It's the only reader I'm aware of that shows all news of a group in one consolidated view. Like that and missed that in FeedR or NewsRob.
Looks pretty nice. Needs some more customization options though.
I still like BuzzBox. It does some cool ranking and separating that even google reader doesn't
Uses phone memory for caching and no app2sd so no sense in using this one. After five minutes of use application size grew to 13 mb. Other than that seems ok – although Pulse offers a much more fun reading experience.
While I’ll be keeping my eye on it, this first effort it a pretty big disappointment.
First and foremost, like all the Google apps for Android it suffers from an unfortunate case of GIGANTIC FONT SYNDROME which makes the interface feel clunky, designed towards children or the elderly, and fits less information. While volume key navigation is nice, it’s hardly new (my main Google Reader app NewsRob has had it for ages).
It’s also slow and in desperate need of some offline caching. The setup process also got stuck for me (it asked me which Google account I wanted to synch Reader with – I chose my main one but couldn’t get any further until I un-selected it and chose my secondary account – I then had to go back and choose my main one again).
I have to agree with @Jonathan Hayward on the GICANTIC FONT. I have a hard time deciding what I prefer-mobile web apps or native apps.
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