And Here It Is: The New Google Reader Revealed

[garethsprice]

Adding a full 20px of vertical padding to each item in a list sure looks pretty, but it's cut the number of items visible on the page by ~50%. For a tool designed for skimming large amounts of information it seems to cut efficiency rather than improve it.

Can any UI people provide a good reason for this change? (More white space = faster skimming/more comprehension?)

[lukesandberg]

You assume that skimming is a primary use case. That is not how i use google reader (if there is a feed that i consistently do not want to read i unsubscribe). Maybe they were optimizing for my use case, where you read everything (or close to it).

[1010011010]

So the only way to share something privately is to first publicly +1 it?

Ah, apparently you can click "share" in the black bar at the top and it will let you directly share the currently selected item in reader with specific circles. That's not very discoverable.

[cgranade]

I agree, that is a poor choice to have as the only way to share something. An easy fix would be to add a link on each item as a kind of synonym for the Share button in the G+ bar. That said, the problem is a pretty minor one given the extent of the redesign. I'm rather happy with the new Reader myself.

[seppo0010]

And it can't be done with the keyboard. I used to use 'l' to like and 'S' to share. Both shortcuts are gone.

[th0ma5]

try perhaps sendto?

[abhimishra]

The new UI seems to waste a lot of the screen with whitespace, to the point where I feel like it is an unintended bug (this is in the 'Expanded' view)...and it seems like you can no longer resize anything on the page?

[chad_oliver]

Contrary to most people here, I really like the new layout. I'm trying to move to web-apps for most of my daily needs, and I specifically decided that the old Google Reader wasn't good enough.

This feels much more like a native app, rather than something that 1999 forgot. Form may not equal function, but it sure influences function.

[barredo]

im sorry but: fuck everything about this.

google reader was the site where i've learned the most in the internet by sharing and reading other people's comments and notes. it was a truly content based social network

it was fun

it was great

it is gone

[joebadmo]

I totally disagree. The old social functions were totally opaque, irrational, and hard to control.

The new system allows you to share with select groups, or publicly, in a very granular way.

Just because you got used to an old, broken way of doing things doesn't mean that it was better. I can't believe the amount of collective bitching about this long-overdue overhaul.

[jzawodn]

Indeed. Google is starting to show signs of Yahooizing itself. And that's really sad.

[rfvtgb]

They sacrificed usability to make a lot of GReader users use G+ begrudgingly. Now, instead of being able to see a nice feed counter for friends' shares, I would have to go to G+ in another tab to do what I was previously able to in the very same tab.

Reader integrating into G+? Why is this relationship not mutual?

Edit: And the concept of "+1" being to "give it your stamp of approval" does not exactly suit the majority of my shares...

For one, I shared a particular article called "New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing".

[dinde]

I dislike how there is no visual difference between read and unread items.

[chad_oliver]

But there is a visual difference. Unread items have a bold title and a white background.

[youngtaff]

It's horrible...

Removal of sharing completely fucks up the workflow I use to send things to pinboard

[hollerith]

Well, from Google's point of view, that is a feature :)

[mirzmaster]

I wonder if you can add a custom sharing link from Google Reader's settings page and leverage the Pinboard API:

http://pinboard.in/api/#posts_add

[laacz]

If for a few days I've been nervous that my free Apps account still does not have Google+, now I'm glad. Because that means, that I won't get new Google Reader, since it is useless (and probably won't work) without Google+.

Oh, wait. They could switch my reader to new version, and then it wouldn't work, because I don't have Google+. Oh. Waiting.

Or I'm just giving in to mass of people, who are not glad with the product, which is not yet shipped.

Update: I have new version of Reader. And no social stuff. http://laacz.lv/tmp/oops-google-reader.png. Sweet, Google...

[teilo]

The New Google Reader is ugly and has fewer features. Hardly what I would call an upgrade.

[Nic0]

what is this all about, tablet and smartphone again? maybe this 20px space is more handy with phone, but i'm very confused about pc.

I can't use this with a laptop, can I?

[runn1ng]

The worst thing about these new designs is - they are LESS USABLE on Android tablet than before!

I wanted to write an article about how all the new interfaces (Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Translate) work LESS on Android tablet than the old ones, but I have no time for that.

Plus, I feel like I am the only person in the world with an Android tablet anyway.

[MarkSweep]

Is there a way to get your old shared items back? I'm feeling a betrayed having all those interesting links and comments taken away from me.

[neonkiwi]

You can get your shared items (and a few other things) as JSON here: http://www.google.com/reader/settings?display=import

This isn't very useful to the average user, but I'm sure any HN reader can handle this.

[laz]

sigh. I'm now looking at http://tt-rss.org/

[nvictor]

ok nice looking and all but still not API T_T