Google still has the best feed reader

Yes, we all know Google Reader was shut down for good on July 2 of last year.   It's creators went on to do great things, and are still at it.  Users had an emotional attachment to Google Reader; it was the best for those that understood RSS. Many were upset at its sunsetting.  That's well known.

What's less well known is that Google is rebuilding a smarter newsreader, from the consumer point of view.   What I don't understand is where it is hidden: inside the Google Play Library under "My News".  For the last year, I thought this was a place for Google to sell magazines to compete with the quite weak iOS Newstand, so I never ventured into Play News.

But yesterday, I actually wanted to buy a digital copy of a magazine (hard to believe I know) - and discovered that Play News is so much more than a digital magazine stand.   It's a news reader with a feed reader underneath.

In fact, they do a pretty good job of mixing both together.  But just as a basic newsreader it's pretty damn good.

You can navigate to the publications you like, and this part is genius, it will auto promote the publisher's mobile app if it appears in the Play store.    Little golf claps for the PM at Google who created this feature.

And underneath, yes there is a feed reader.   In fact, here's how this blog looks inside of My News:

So yes, RIP Google Reader, but let's hope Play News combined with the news that appears in Google Now can fill the void.    Google has always been good at creating relevant news products, they've just been really poor at marketing them.  Let's hope this incarnation stays alive.

Update:  This app is actually called "Play Newstand" and does have it's own icon in Android if you dig into all your apps.

I didn't correct my flawed name uses above to underscore Google's lack of branding.   Getting the name to dsiplay without an ellipsis as "Play News..." isn't easy.

Android is now winning for me over iOS

I'm preparing to switch over to Android for good. Since the release of the Google Nexus 5 , I've been carrying both an iPhone 5, and the said Nexus 5. Essentially, I use the iPhone for my personal phone, and the Nexus for work. But I gotta say, I barely even use the iPhone. The Nexus and KitKat are just so ingrained into my work and lifestyle, being connected with Gmail, hangouts and my Google accounts, that it's really just my go-to device for almost everything. KitKat is so easy and smooth, and iOS 7 is just, blah. Android has been making quantum leaps between versions (granted, they've been playing catch up), where the only interesting feature that has been added that's interesting on iOS7 is easy access to the flashlight.

Even on the music side, where I think Apple and iTunes have traditionally led leaps and bounds above Google Play, whenever I add something to iTunes, Google Play Music picks it up and uploads it.  It's available on my device sooner than it is on iTunes match because of how iTunes match refreshes on the device.

On the tablet side, I've seen the same thing.  I barely touch my iPad, and instead gravitate to my Google Nexus 7 every night. And the Nexus Wireless Charger is pretty amazing and convenient.

Now, every company I work with still develops an iOS version of their app before the Android version, so I'll still need to keep the iPhone around - but I'm getting tired of carrying two phones.

I'm ready to switch for good.

Chromebook just got infinitely better, and this is the future of Android

I've been using a Samsung Chromebook Series 5 500C for some time now, but to be honest, I was getting ready to sell it because I just couldn't get used to having only one browser open at time.  Especially with multiple Google accounts, it just didn't mirror how I work on my Mac with multiple Chrome profiles for every Google account I use.  Fifteen full page tabs just feels weird.

The newest release into the Chrome OS dev channel just changed all that.  It allows for multiple Browser windows to be overlapped, and includes a ribbon launcher on the bottom of the screen that makes this feel more like a computer.

To get the newest release, you go to the wrench, select "About Chrome OS", select "more info..." and choose "Dev - Unstable".  The next time your Chromebook looks for updates, it will download this version, which although it is called "Unstable" has been pretty stable for me.

This all got me thinking...this is probably one of the biggest reasons I don't take a tablet seriously for getting real work done.  That is, the multitasking presentation that exists today on iOS and Android just doesn't make sense for how my brain thinks about multitasking apps.  I need to see the multiple windows to remember they are there.

The closest I've seen to this being solved is Chrome on Android.  There's an affordance that's always there to tile the multiple windows, and it just works so much better than having to remember that button is down there to see the other programs that are running on Android.   And having to double button on iOS - I wonder how many people know that is there.   The simplicity of iOS doesn't work for me. My brain craves something more complex.

If Google can solve the multi-window problem in Android like they have in Chrome for Android, and merge that with Chrome OS, then I think they will actually have a powerful weapon against Apple.     When I can effectively use my Android phone as a Chomebook, then this starts to all make sense.

The Motorola Atrix kind of has a feature like this when you dock it, and although it looks pretty klunky now, perhaps this is one of the things that Google really bought from Motorola mobility, especially if they patented it.

I expect the next iteration of the Xoom tablet, to be a Google tablet, sold like they started selling the Galaxy Nexus yesterday.  I expect Chrome to be front and center on said tablet, to pave the way for the Chrome OS/Android merge, with this Moto docking technology coming in the background.

Chrome on Android is already so good, I definitely use it more than I use native apps on my Galaxy Nexus, so this doesn't seem like a stretch.

This post was written entirely on my Chomebook.

[n.b.:  this is all conjecture - I don't have any knowledge of this as a strategy from my time working at Google]

Chrome for Android...wow

One site	Multiple Tabs
Syncs with your Desktop	Synced bookmarks

Some quick thoughts on Google Chrome for Android:

Awesome user experience.   For a beta, it's incredibly polished.  The animations on the Galaxy Nexus are smooth, and just beautiful.   This is the mobile browser you want to look at. You can't see it in the stills, but when you dismiss tabs, they fly off the screen at an angle.  Really slick.

The best execution of multiple tabs on a mobile browser I've seen.

It pre-fetches websites it thinks you want to read next - if you want it to. The default is not to do this on the mobile network. ( I wonder if it generates ad impressions for pre-fetched pages, or if they've created an API with Doubleclick to delay impressions somehow. )

When there are no tabs open, your recently closed tabs are there in a list.

According to html5test.com the browser implements 343 out of 475 of the necessary actions (compared to iOS5 Mobile Safari doing 305) and it does seem to render most websites better than anything else I've seen on a mobile device.

And it's fast.  I'm sold.

It sure seems to me that the rate in which Android and its collection of apps and services are improving is faster than the rate in which iOS and its apps and services are improving.  I personally find myself grabbing my Galaxy Nexus over any other phone about 90% of the time these days.   My iPhone is getting jealous for sure.

Motorola Xoom won't boot?

My Motorola Xoom a few times has decided to just shut itself off and put itself in a state whereby pushing the power button will not turn it on.

The fix:  hold down the power button and the "volume up" button for 3-4 seconds.   

Not sure what causes this, but this always seems to fix it.

Wow, that's a helluva roadblock by Samsung on techcrunch.com

Wow, that's a big roadblock takeover of the techcrunch.com home page by Samsung advertising the
Samsung Galaxy Tab .  You have an expandable masthead banner on the top that pretty much takes over the huge Widgetbox powered masthead ad, and then they also got the medium rectangle there on the left.  I guess if you want to get in front of TC's users, that's the way to do it.

Btw, the Tab is a pretty cool device - a first mover in the many Android tablets I have a feeling we will see in 2011.   If 2010 wasn't already, 2011 is going to be the year of the tablet app.  We're going to see some innovative stuff for this form factor like we saw with Flipboard (my favorite) on the iPad this year.