The app’s user interface is really well-done. After entering your account information, you have an overview of all your Google Reader news-feeds. The first thing that appears in your list is an “All articles” tab. Below that you can see al of your subscriptions.
At the bottom of the screen you’ll find two buttons: “Refresh” and “Mark all articles as read”. You can also switch between viewing read und unread articles. To access your marked articles, you have to switch to viewing your read articles. You can also add tags and share your articles there.
At the top you’ll find a plus button that let’s you add new feeds. You first have to enter in a URL before you can see all of the available news-feeds. Click on the ones you like to add them to your Google Reader.
Within any given subscription list, you can adjust the sorting order to have either new or old articles displayed first.
When reading an article you have the option of marking the article as either read or unread. The following options can be accessed via the menu-button:
Copy Link
Image Fit/Normal Fit (Adjust pictures to the screen)
Inverse (Night view)
At the bottom edge of an article are three buttons. Pressing the first button opens up the article in the gReader browser, the second button let’s you read the article in your default browser and the third button let’s you share the article with others.
If you open up an article using the internal browser, there’s an additional button that switches the article to text view. In this case, all pictures are removed (or placed displayed at the end of the article) and the font size increases in order to make it easier to read. You can flip through the article by using the arrow buttons on the side of the screen. At the right edge you’ll find a zoom-button that let’s you zoom in on parts of the article.
As far as the internal browser is concerned, there are a couple of drawbacks. Sometimes JavaScript error messages are displayed (JavaScript for Mobile Safari is currently turned off). Most of the time, however, you can still make out the text behind the pop-up window with an error message. During our test, the internal browser failed to display certain articles in full. The good thing about the gReader browser is that you can switch between different viewing modes (read on for more info).
To get to your Settings, press the menu button in your subscription screen.
Here are the options available:
- About
- Logout
- Subscriptions/Folders/Tags (Switch viewing order)
- More
- Buy gReader Pro
- Send a feedback
- Clear Cache
Inside Settings you have the following categories:
Synchronisation
Notification
Cache
User Interface
In User Synchronization you can adjust the update intervals or turn off the automatic synchronization entirely. You also have the option of setting up a limit for synchronized articles, as well as being able to turn Google Reader Sync on/off. This features worked perfectly during out test, despite it being labeled as beta.
You can add reminders about new feeds in the Notifications section. You can also adjust the sound and vibration alerts for these reminders.
In the Cache category you can select where downloaded files should be saved to (local or SD Card) or delete them manually.
As far as the user interface is concerned, you can adjust the article buttons, sort order and article view. You can also select the way in which articles are displayed in the internal browser:
Original link
Google Mobilizer (optimized for mobile phones)
Instapaper Mobilizer (optimized for mobile phones)
Bottom Line:
Despite some minor problems, gReader is a great app in terms of UI and controls. If you’re a regular Google Reader user and are looking for an app that let’s you read news comfortably on your phone, then you should definitely give gReader a try.
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