I’ve always been puzzled as to why there isn’t an official Google Reader app on Android. I mean, Android has built-in RSS functionality, but why would they keep that separate from their massively popular and wildly useful Google Reader? When it comes down to it, I need to have my RSS solution synced across all devices, not stuck on one device. Google Reader has been a solution to that issue, but until now there was never an official Google Reader app for Android.

Well, several years after the release of Android, Google has finally released and Official Google Reader app.

Sure, you’ve always been able to access an admittedly good Google Reader web app at www.google.com/i, but this web app was originally designed for iOS devices and, in fact, still uses graphics which are designed for older generation iOS devices, leaving them pixelated on modern iOS or Android devices. Not to mention that you don’t have access to some of the features that the native app now offers.

The Google Reader app will run on any Android device with Android 1.6 (Donut) or later, and includes many of the core functions that you can do with the desktop version that we’ve come to know and love. Most of your settings will sync between the two which is nice. Some of the features include:

• Multiple accounts
• Synced preferences
• Ability to subscribe and search for subscriptions
• Search through your feeds
• Volume key navigation (awesome!) – allows you to navigate between items using the volume buttons on your device
• Share items using Android’s integrated sharing menu (let’s you share with Gmail/Facebook/SMS/Bluetooth/Reader/Twitter and other third party apps)

Initial testing on the Samsung Continuum [tracking page] shows great core functionality. Speed is decent but I’m not quite sure if it’s as quick as the web version.

The only issue I’ve seen so far is that when you rotate between landscape and portrait orientations, the view is reset to the top of the current item. This is annoying if you decide to switch orientations in the middle of reading. Also for the time being there’s no way to get notifications which some will surely want, but if you follow a high volume of sites you’ll realize why this would only be bothersome. Still, I could see an update every 4 hours or so showing how many new items you’ve received being useful, but we’ll just have to wait and see if an update eventually brings such features.

If you can’t stand typing, hit up the barcode below with your Android phone to jump straight to the app in the Android Marketplace, or just search the Marketplace for “google reader”:

We’re getting a clearer picture of the operating system strategy from Google today as PCMag reports on Eric Schmidt’s closing keynote at IFA in Berlin. Apart from talking about the future of search, location search, fast search, personal search and the growth in mobile web and smartphones, he confirmed in a Q&A that Chrome OS is targeted at netbooks.

The next question is ‘what is a netbook’ but at least the strategy for Chrome OS aligns with what Google said on day one. If we consider Chrome OS to be a very fast way to access Google search and web applications and add the web application layer/web app store then you have a basic framework for a web-based user interface and application layer for a simple Linux-based PC. Interestingly, that Linux-based core could come from the Android space, from Linaro, from MeeGo or any of the other mobile-focused Linux platforms and could even contain an Android environment as part of the user-layer but we get the impression that Google is going it alone on this as a separate project. It will be interesting to see what netbook manufacturers pick it up and work their drivers and customisations into it because at the moment, the Intel/Nokia-backed MeeGo appears to have the better position.

With Chrome OS targeted at netbooks it would be easy to summise now that Android 3.0 is for next-gen high-end smartphones, tablets and smart-books. We need to be a little careful though because Google is also putting a lot of effort into TV and Eric Schmidt confirmed in his keynote that Android is a part of Google TV. Could this be the target for Android 3.0? Whatever the strategy here, the key point is that Google will open Android up to new screen sizes. Its a clear signal for developers to start thinking about large-screen applications.

When will this happen? Chrome partnerships will be announced later this year but Android 3.0 timescales are less clear.

With companies like Samsung, Dell and Toshiba moving real products into this space now and with Samsung pushing for 10M sales of the Galaxy Tab [That seems way too high to me Chippy] there must be people at Google thinking about speeding up the Android 3.0 process. Major changes to Market and their app suite would be needed so this isn’t a minor task but with HP, Nokia, Intel and others breathing down their necks, it has to happen soon.

See also: Question Marks that Remain Over Q4 Tablets

Sidenote: Intel are working on an X86 port of Android for their ‘always-on’ capable platforms for 2011. These platforms are targeted at the 4-10 inch screen space and so clearly something has to happen with large screen support. With Intel and a key member of the Open Handset Alliance and a close Google partner (Google TV for example) we should also watch for clues from that side of the camp. Intel are likely to have X86-Android ready for mid-late 2011 and this, according to Intel, will be offered up as an official X86 Android. Some of this Intel/Android work is also likely to be part of Google TV.

The full and very interesting keynote is available here.

Via netbooknews.de

Downloadsquad have had a tip-off that a Google Chrome OS tablet is coming. Finally we’ll be able to see if it’s just a dumb browser or whether Google have finalised the Chrome Web Store they were promising. It will be interesting to see what platform they’ge chosen too. Could this be the first Moorestown tablet?

Apparently HTC are building it but price and details are unknown at this stage. We’ll put it in the database as soon as we have info.

Google launching a Chrome OS tablet on Verizon, goes on sale November 26.

Here’s one for Chippy, the much anticipated Google Maps Navigation yesterday went live in 11 more countries. The UK and USA have been using the free turn by turn navigation service on Android for a while now and so far has proven very popular among its users.

Google Maps Navigation is an Internet-connected GPS navigation system that provides turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps. It uses the devices inbuilt GPS and also the data connection to download maps before your journey starts, this means if you go off route then you will need an active data connection and allowance for the application to reroute you. It also provides Street View images when available on the roads you are travelling on.

The new countries that have been added are Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland for Android devices 1.6 and higher. Google have also flipped the switch on the beta of Search by voice for the countries listed above meaning no device handling is require while your on the move.

Let us know if you are located in one of the above countries on how Google Maps Navigation is working for you.

Lets wind back to June last year, the web was buzzing with the news that Google had announced it was releasing an operating system, well a browser that acts like one. The software architecture is simple Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel, its open source, lightweight  and Google intend to get to consumers in the second half of this year. When they announced the project 12 months ago Google stated “Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. inch

Now come to the present day and Computex 2010, the perfect theatre to show physical devices running your shiny new operating system, be them prototypes or final products and there are none?

To make matters worse, the news of Meego and demonstrations of the Tablet Experience user interface have left lasting impressions on not just me, but the likes of Joanna Stern of Engadget,

“We saw a lot of new technology demoed at Intel’s Computex keynote this afternoon, but the most impressive thing may have just been Meego running on a 10-inch Moorestown Quanta Redvale tablet. While the demo on stage was very brief, we caught up with some of the product managers right after the presser and convinced them to give us a peek at what is coming in 2011. To say we’re impressed with the “pre-alpha” version of the software is a huge understatement. inch

Acer’s president Gianfranco Lanci pointed out at Intel’s e21FORUM 2010 meeting that Acer will launch netbooks and tablet PCs that adopt Intel’s latest Atom processor and will also preload the MeeGo platform on them.

Its obvious that MeeGo and Chrome OS are fundamentally different but given today’s age of publicity, advertising and hype, Google could have really done with having something to show at Computex.

I just stopped by the ARM room at Computex to pre-register for the press event and they kindly gave me a press pack which gives a hint about what they’ll be talking about.

This is interesting because the press pack and press release talks almost exclusively about Android 2.2 as if nothing else mattered right now!

It’s a question I’ve been looking for an answer to for a long time. There are plenty of tablet manufacturers that are in the dark too. Why doesn’t Google allow Android Marketplace on non-phone devices?

It’s crippled the Archos 5, the Camangi Webstation, the Compaq Airlife 100 and many other devices. There are also OEMs out there that I speak too that can’t even open a dialog with Google on the subject.

It was fairly obvious that they wanted to protect and preserve the quality of the Android experience but it has taken until now for official words to reach the surface.

Google argues that the reason it doesn’t permit tablet vendors access to Android Market just yet is to prevent devices that fail comparability tests from actually fragmenting the platform.

Google, in this case, is none-other than Mr Android, Andy Rubin who in Michael Gartenbergs good article over at Engadget appears to argue that Android is not fragmenting, it’s just a fast developing environment that leaves older products in its wake and it’s up to everyone else to keep up. To me, it sounds like BS because 1 you’ve got a native code development kit that could break apps left right and center. 2 There are lamps, flashlights and screen sizes that have already broken compatibility. I have a Sony Ericsson X10-specific app that toggles the flashlight. 3 There are switches in the marketplace that try (and often fail) to prevent fragmentation and incompatibility reaching customers and 4 How can they say that when they’ve just introduced a huge element of fragmentation Google TV – a non-smartphone platform that uses a completely different set of silicon with a different instruction set. Fragmentation is already there.

As a customer, I find this ‘keep up’ message rather worrying although to be fair to Google, there aren’t any quotes from Andy Rubin to go on here and Gartenberg may have just spinned this message. To customers, fragmentation is real. Customers live in the wake of product development. Products may be released every six months but that doesn’t mean that all the old products are thrown away. Google needs to make sure it keeps up the pace of innovation but not so fast that the customer is left with a pocketful of six-month old products that are considered ‘old.’ Micheal Gartenberg picks up on this:

I’d argue perhaps Android isn’t fragmented, at least according to the classical definition, but that the practical result is the same. Devices going obsolete in months and new operating systems released on weekly cycles make it difficult for even Google’s best partners to keep pace. Worse, users care onfronted with a dizzying array of devices, many of which are out of sync from a software perspective at the time of purchase — causing some to delay purchases in fear of buyer’s remorse or purchase a competing platform.

Listen, I don’t mind fragmentation. I think it comes with the territory and I think it’s something dev’elopers will always have to consider. Sure, it would be nice to have one set of hardware but where would that leave us! Why doesn’t Andy Rubin just admit it it’s fragmented, that’s the way it will always be, it will get worse, deal with it. A non-fragmented Android is simply not possible any more.

Having got that out of the way, let us consider the marketplace for non-smartphone devices. Do Google consider tablets, MIDs, smart-books and related products to be a big market? With only one product out of hundreds actually having success and even then, only selling 1 million units you have to agree that it’s not exactly a proven market yet. These are niche categories right now and probably wouldn’t be big enough to support any large-scale business plan. The second consideration is, assuming Google do want to move forward with non-smartphone devices, how do they do it.

What devices are we talking about?

Tablets, navigation devices, ebook readers, slider handhelds, smart-books, cameras, gaming devices and a whole range of gadgets and gizmos that could benefit from a marketplace. [Sidenote: I’m looking forward to the day when a medium range digital camera is released with an ‘Nexus-One Back’ and access to all the hardware features. Can you imagine the applications that could be written!]

Solutions

There are three ways I see that Google could move forward. 1) Create multiple marketplaces. 2) Let the devices talk to marketplace so that incompatible apps can be removed from view 3) let the users provide feedback and the ability to remove down-graded apps from view and promote apps that are proven to work.

Of course, Google could also do nothing and let competitors like MeeGo and WebOS take up the strain. 3rd party Android marketplaces also have an opportunity.

Summary.

It looks like it will happen. Non-smartphone devices will get a real Marketplace. Obviously Google are considering it and when I see tweets from people like James Kendrick,  the GigaOM employee that was given a Nexus One running Android 2.2 before the Google IO conference saying “Android is getting ready for a serious run into the tablet space. Mark my words. inch then I have to assume he knows somethin that we don’t and that there’s work going on right now.

Dell are working on the Looking Glass and Huawei on the Smakit S7. There’s even a Wifi-only  Dell Mini 5 / Streak planned. These companies have experience with Google Android and they know the value of Marketplace. They also know what Google will require of them so I doubt they will be planning tablets without knowing that marketplace is going to happen for tablets soon. Look to the release dates of these products for clues about Marketplace for non-smartphone devices.

Fragmentation in Android IS happening and developers need to get used to it. Mr Rubin needs developers and will do everything he can to placate them in discussions about fragmentation but the truth is that it’s going to get harder to develop for Android in the future. Consumers, on the other hand, can look forward to some interesting developments soon. Computex, next week, should be an eye opener.

Meet:Mobility Podcast 50 is now available.

In this show, number 50 on the 21st May 2010 we have a lot to talk about from Google IO in San Francisco to Computex in Taipei. Sasha and myself will be giving you feedback from our time with the iPad and we also talk about the netbook summit.

Full show notes, download and listen links at MeetMobility

You can also find the podcast on iTunes (Please rate the show on iTunes.) You can also subscribe via RSS.