The Weekly Geek is a geek culture podcast and blog covering video games, music, food and more. We hope you enjoy it.

editor-in-chief
chris furniss

current contributors
qais fulton
jinny koh
max brooks
michael wiegand
ross rosenberg
fresh meat
john forster
ryan g. biv
laurel fuller

meta

mailbag

Feed our mailbag and get your letter read on air!

feed it!

    recommended distractions

    Chris

    iPhone + Google Reader Glitches

    posted by Chris on July 16, 2008 10:35 AM in Geek Culture

    greaderiphone.jpgBeing able to read my RSS feed subscriptions on my phone is an amazingly geeky experience. It's one of the aspects of the iPhone that make you just sit back and revel in the glow of the future. But as much as I love Google's various services and Apple's glorious Jesus Phone, I can't help but feel frustrated with not being able to perform really basic tasks. Beyond not being able to copy and paste text, Google Reader acts a bit funky on this mobile device. While it's been fantastic to be able to read my RSS items during my commute (making me less enticed to get that unread count down while I'm at work) I'm a multitasker and the iPhone doesn't seem to like that.

    For example, clicking a link in Google Reader on the iPhone opens said link in a new page, which you can scroll over to. Handy, right? Well what if the link is in the middle of an article you'd like to eventually go back to and finish reading? When you close the page you just opened and go back to Reader, sometimes it automatically refreshes the page, marking the item as read and making it disappear. This also seems to happen whenever I want to bump out to the home screen to turn on some music, or to answer a text message. Every time I go back to Reader there's a chance it will reload the page.

    In addition, this morning I was having issues with Reader bumping me back to home while I'm in the middle of reading an article. I didn't even touch anything! Real frustrating. Good thing I'm Apple's bitch and will keep using the thing anyway. Curse you and your addictive devices, Jobs!

    Anyone else having issues with Reader on the iPhone?

    Read More: , ,

    comments (3) | permalink

    chesh says:

    posted July 16, 2008 1:28 PM

    Incidentally, my Moto Q9c has a back button that seems to return to the cached page, so that I never lose the article I was just reading.
    Of course, it's web browser is a pile of steaming shit, otherwise, so I'm pretty sure you still come out ahead.

    Victor says:

    posted July 16, 2008 1:56 PM

    Hi,

    with the Google Reader, my little pet peeve is the landing page. I would rather see the root with the treeview of what feeds I'm following rather than a quickview page.

    After reading your previous app review, I started looking things up. The applications you mentioned. Yelp is unavailable in Canada. Whrrl, which was what I had mentioned in the comments, a similar program, isn't either. No GoogleApp either, no big loss however.

    Battery life has been a growing concern of mine. Since this device doubles up as my PMP. I listen to podcasts etc on it during my workday. This baby's at 20% battery life by the time I get home. I will need to start turning off WiFi while at work and deactivating 3g unless I plan to do some serious net usage.

    Another odd thing I've noticed is that the iTunes App only works during a WiFi connect and not through 3G service whereas the AppStore doesn't care how you're connected.

    Nick says:

    posted July 20, 2008 4:33 PM

    As an iPod touch owner, I've been using the mobile google reader for quite awhile. They actually recently redid the interface, and I do not like it...

    What say you?!

    fresh podcasts

    more podcasts

    new chatter

    tag cloud

    feeling generous?

    The Weekly Geek is done on a zero budget, with no funding other than ads and merch. Help support the site with a donation! Consider it like tipping your waiter. We also give gifts for larger donations.

    One time donation:
    Monthly Donation: