Google Reader Play: The iPad Version

10 May 2010 | Apps |

GoogleReader is a fast, fun way to browse interesting stuff on the web and its iPad version offers a user friendly interface that utilizes the iPad’s extra screen advantage to provide a view of your documents on the left hand side of the screen, and functions you can perform on panels on the right hand side. It provides a new way to look at your feeds one Google-suggested site at a time. Google Reader Play recommends items to you based on what you mark as a liked or disliked. If you are logged into your Google account, it will pull from your own recommended items and also articles shared by contacts. And if you already use Google Reader, there is a new option when you click the arrow on one of your feed-folders to View in Reader Play. The primary functions, in addition to file viewing, include thumbnail previews, searching, file management (which includes the ability to protect files, star them, mark them as read, create new files and folders, e-mail files, rename files, create links to files, and even compress files and folders), and also browse and download files from Web sites.  This level of functionality is exceptional. What adds an extra sparkle to GoodReader is that it supports most common document file types, while also allowing you to save and view Web pages (either in HTML or Safari webarchive format), and download, listen to, or view photos, audio, and video files. Movies and music play back without a hitch; in addition to viewing photos within GoodReader, you can also save them to your iPad’s photo album. One of its most impressive features enables users, to open, browse, read, bookmark, and search PDF files. The app also offers a feature called “PDF reflow,” which automatically extracts text from PDF files and outputs a readable text file, when possible. (Some PDF files are essentially image files, and GoodReader can’t extract text from them, for example.) All of the PDF features available in the iPhone version are present and work even better on the iPad’s big screen; the multiple options provided for navigating documents especially benefit from the extra space. It’s a great way to quickly flip through the news, and you don’t need to have ever touched an RSS subscription to do it. If you also consider that pretty much every Gmail user now has contacts due to Google Buzz, then Play should get pretty accurate, pretty soon. And of course, while it’s neato on the desktop, it’s tailor-made for tablets, especially as it doesn’t use Flash which can easily slow down these often underpowered machines. We fully expect to see an iPad-optimized version very soon. As GoodReader offers a lot, it would be an almost perfect app if it enabled you to cut and copy text and images via the iPad’s clipboard, and if it provided some kind of notation feature, such as highlighting or commenting capabilities.