Offline Google Reader

Here is a little glitch I ran into with Google Reader. I’m hopeful someone on that team picks this up, but maybe I’m giving their bug/idea search too much credit.

The problem is that Google reader isn’t always ready to go offline.  Before my most recent flight to Dallas I installed Gears and tested switching between "go online" and "go offline" modes. At home it seemed to work great, but the system allowed for some human error that would be easy to fix.

The error is that I forgot to "go offline" before I left.  Then, when I opened my browser it failed to load the Google reader page. Maybe there is some trick I’m missing, but I thought the point of gears was the blur the line between a thin and think clients on the web.  Ideally, Google reader would be constantly downloading my items in the background so that it’s ready whenever my Internet connection fails. It shouldn’t require any planning or foresight on my part. Today it was a plane ride that I knew about, but tomorrow it could just be a "Comcastic" outage.

By: On: October 16, 2007
Categories: Software
Tags: , ,
  • http://www.jwalkerlive.com John Walker

    Josh,

    My thoughts exactly. It works great so long as you remember to take it offline before you step on the plane. If you don't then here comes a boring plane ride. I like your idea of intermittent downloads in the background, but I wonder what the performance implications would be on the back-end if that happened, and if they really want to deal with that. In any event, it is impressive technology, indeed.

  • Josh

    Wow, a real reader and a real comment. I don’t know what to say.  I’m sure the back-end requirements versus the revenue that Google makes from reader play a role in why it doesn’t work this way.

  • http://www.jwalkerlive.com/ John Walker

    Josh,

    Yep, a real reader. I subscribed to your RSS feed back when Scoble interviewed you for Channel 9. That Scoble juice is still paying off. Seriously, though, I enjoy yours and Gretchen's posts.

    jw