E_COMMERCE Many, many problems: - Can't sync properly. Changes made sometimes propagate to Google, sometimes don't. Those that do make it to Google never make it to the desktop client and vice versa. - Latest News doesn't sort articles by read/unread, and doesn't clear out read articles, so finding new ones is nearly impossible - defeating the entire purpose - Feeds don't update their read counts properly. I marked all as read in "Latest News", and none of the other article counts on the groups and feed updated. - Read feeds aren't hidden, making it very frustrating to find new updates and making the list of feeds unweildy and strangely fragmented. Some feeds have new items, some don't, and if you haven't gotten any updates yet, the feed won't show up at all. It makes no sense. - The main list interface is deeply flawed. On the one hand, it tries to show the last update to a feed and the date. A nice gesture, but when it only shows four words - and only from the first update at that, it's useless ("Apple, rapper Eminem... Today, 11:10 AM"). - Stars don't sync to clippings/flags on the desktop. Star something on the iPhone, and it may as well be gone. - The lack of preferences is a noble goal, but taken to extremes here that make the product all but useless. - "Open in Browser" is in a submenu, yet it's the most commonly used button in an RSS reader (after "Mark All as Read"). What? - Fix syncing, wherever the problem lies. Right now, this is a dealbreaker not having the same view on the iPhone as the desktop. - Remove read items from all lists - main feed list, Latest News, etc. If people want it that much, and others (like me) hate it that much - make it a preference. - Sort "Latest News" by unread. Or... make it a preference, much as I can sort how I please on the desktop. - Redesign the main feed list. Regarding the main feed list, I propose offering two modes: compact and detailed. Make it a preference. - Compact: only shows what is currently the first line - favicon, name, and number of unread. Fairly high density, optimized for large numbers of feeds. Similar to 1.x. - Detailed: shows a list of update titles beneath it, perhaps capped at 5 or 10 (but not 1!). Eliminate the dates when in portrait mode - there's just not enough space to show the title and date. That would allow for enough title to be useful, and show several (perhaps all) updates at once. The only downside is that list entries would be different heights, but then they would be useful. Let me say it again - add preferences. I admire an application with sensible enough design and defaults to not need preferences, but this has been taken to an unfortunate extreme. I have the deepest respect for Brent Simmons, but this update is much more difficult and irritating to use. Meanwhile, in any major rewrite there are bound to be bugs - and this is no exception. I'm used to finishing up reading things on the desktop, grabbing my iPhone, and being able to pick up where I left off immediately. Right now, no luck - no matter what I do, I can't get the iPhone to reflect read/unread status changes I make on the desktop. Perhaps there's a delay involved in Google Reader; whatever the case, the product doesn't work as well as it did in 1.x. Syncing is also glacially slow. Here's hoping 2.1 improves things, but we still have to wait for Apple's own glacial process to approve it. I wish I could go back to 1.x, as it was a vastly superior product.
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