Android First-Look: YouTube
Android First-look: Google Reader
I’ll admit, I’m not a huge Google Reader fan. I much prefer the interface of NetNewsWire on my desktop and have been very impressed with Newsgator Go for the BlackBerry (it blows Google Reader away and has all my feeds). That said, Google Reader on the iPhone is actually pretty spectacular.
This is important, because the iPhone and Android use very, very similar browsers. Both are based inWebKit and they render pages almost identically. This is great news for Android, because newsreaders and smartphones really are a match made in heaven. Instead of the typical mobile Reader page, Google has created an optimized WebKit page that really, really shines.
Google Reader is so good, in fact, you probably wouldn’t expect it to be a web app. You can easily view all new items in your account, view new items or all items from a certain category or view items from an individual feed. If a feed is truncated, clicking on a link immediately launches a new browser window to that article. Sharing and marking feeds with stars is easy and intuitive as well.
The real joy in using Google Reader is in how easy reading articles and feeds actually is. Instead of having to squint like I do if I view Google Reader on my BlackBerry (a problem I don’t have with Newsgator Go), everything is clear and easy to navigate.
Check out the gallery to see some shots of Google Reader in action. I also threw in some images from my iPod Touch 2.0, to show off the similarities between the interfaces.
Suddenly Google’s big play to make iPhone optimized sites is making a lot more sense!
Source: Download Squad
Can Google Build a Better Browser?
Holy browser wars, Batgirl! Google announces it will release a brand new open source web browser tomorrow, called Google Chrome. Whaa? Yeah, that’s what we said. Here’s what Google says:
On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.
The Googlers said they borrowed parts of Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s WebKit to build Google Chrome, which sounds like it might be similar to Prism (but with tabs). We won’t know what Google Chrome will look like till tomorrow, when they make the beta available for download. Update: Techcrunch has some leaked screenshots and (now non-working) video clips. Tx, christophersisk. In the meantime, do you want a new browser from the big G? Can you imagine it being good enough to switch from your current favorite browser? Either way, the browser wars just got a heck of a lot more interesting. Check back tomorrow for our full Google Chrome test drive.