Brand new Google Reader for iPhone
Mobile web browsers have come a long way since we first introduced an XHTML version of Reader back in 2006. For example, iPhone and iPod Touch owners know how powerful having a full-featured browser is. We on the Reader team are heavy mobile Safari users.
Context & Ripple Effects
This launch extends a pattern of Google rebuilding its services around the iPhone's full-featured browser rather than stripped-down WAP pages — following iGoogle's iPhone-optimized version earlier in 2008. It also builds directly on Reader's own history: the 2005 Reader API had already made the product a platform, and the team now treats mobile Safari as capable enough to replace the XHTML version shipped back in 2006.
First-order effects
- iPhone and iPod Touch owners get a purpose-built Reader interface in mobile Safari, replacing the 2006-era XHTML version for those users.
- The Reader team signals it is prioritizing WebKit-class mobile browsers as first-class clients, not afterthoughts.
Second-order effects
- Other Google properties follow the same playbook — Gmail later gets a mobile-Safari rebuild explicitly designed to feel like a native app (Gmail in mobile Safari) — pressuring rivals to match web-app quality on iOS.
- A dedicated Android Reader app eventually follows (the Android Google Reader app), showing the mobile-web experiment becomes a template for per-platform clients.
Third-order effects
- The line between 'web app' and 'native app' blurs structurally: browsers powerful enough to host full products shift where RSS readers, mail clients, and portals get built, weakening the case for thin mobile gateways.
- If the pattern holds, platform owners gain leverage over third-party web apps through browser capabilities — a tension that persists as long as readers depend on a single company's hosted reader, as Reader's later redesign around Google+ sharing (the fresh design and Google+ sharing update) illustrates.
The trend: Major web companies are progressively treating advanced mobile browsers as primary application platforms, foreshadowing the convergence of web apps and native apps on smartphones.