Google Reader Integration Settings
January 3, 2009 — Mike (admin)Google Reader integration is finally here! Apple has just given the application the OK and it should be available within a few hours. This post is here to explain some of the new settings available for Google Reader integration.
Username and password are pretty self-explanatory: just put in your Google username and Google password.
Interval to Back Sync: This will affect how long it takes Feeds to sync with Google Reader. You should set this to approximately the interval that you open Feeds. If you open Feeds once per day, set it to one day. If you open Feeds every 6 hours, set it to 6 hours. This is essentially how far back Feeds will look to see if you have read/starred/shared any items from your computer. If you want Feeds to load faster and you aren’t too concerned with Feeds having a perfectly accurate account of what items you read on your computer, set this to Never.
All Items: Only Unread: If you set this to ON, when you touch the ‘All Items’ row in your feed list you will get only the unread items instead of all of them.
Reset on next start: If you have having any issues with the Google Reader synchronization, set this to ON and Feeds will reset all of your downloaded and synced items and redownload them all from Google.
This is an interesting feature, thanks. I don’t use Google Reader yet, just Feeds. I was going to set up the sync so perhaps I could try Google Reader with Feeds.
However, the docs say if I turn on the new synch feature, my Feeds newsfeeds (which I have carefully set up) with be replaced by what’s in Google Reader (which is nothing), essentially erasing my Feeds feeds. Is this correct?
If so, I guess I can’t use this feature unless I go set up a all my feeds in Google Reader, then sync.
Can you elaborate on this please?
I had to find another RSS reader because I was using Google Reader but was horrible compared to Feeds. Thank you for finally integrating Google Reader.
Steve, I have a very quick tutorial on my blog about how to use Google Reader if you would like to check it out, blog.neilminetto.com. Let me know what you think. It is very easy to use and so many blogs and news sites have integration with Google Reader as well.
Thanks again team, I am going to tweet this for sure!!
Steve, if you switch to Google Reader all of your current RSS feeds will be saved and if you then turn off Google Reader integration everything will return to normal. I recommend setting up all of your feeds in Google Reader on your computer then switch Feeds over to Google Reader mode.
Mike
Thanks, guys. I created all my feeds in Google Reader. Nothing showed up at first in Feeds, I had to choose that “Reset” option.
Once thing is a bit unclear to me: if I use the “reset” google option, and it works, should I now turn that option off or does it remain on?
Thanks, this makes my favorite newsreader even better!
Steve: I believe the ‘reset’ option is a toggle. To force Feeds to reset the Google sync data, you’d flip that option on once. The next time you run Feeds it will reset the Google data and then automatically flip the option off. [Take that with a grain of salt; I'm not the developer.] You only use that reset setting if things get screwed up (or perhaps for the initial sync if it doesn’t work correctly automatically).
If you don’t Google Reader yet, Steve, you might want to give it a shot. It’s very handy to have access to all your feeds from any internet connection and a browser. And now that it’s incorporated in Feeds… best of both worlds.
Mike: As usual, a most excellent job. You make my iphone more useful and I’m grateful.
Minor bug report: I flipped Google on and it synched just fine but some of the number-unread badges on the initial Feeds page were … funky. Like, I’d see a little half circle and no number. When I’d tap the folder to descend into it, I’d briefly see a little bit of some number (like one digit) flash for a second, but not the full thing.
I wish I could give you more to go on — I wasn’t thinking quickly enough to take a screen shot, sorry. I understand if you want to smack me.
In any case, it’s a minor bug and it hasn’t repeated itself.
All in all, you continue to rock.
Well, I am really excited about the Google Reader integration. I setup my Google Reader account with Feeds, and when I loaded it up, it showed all my subscriptions fine. The only problem is, when I went back in later and found out that I had some new unread items, I went to view them in Feeds, and they are nowhere to be found. In fact, all of my RSS subscriptions are blank pages (no read or unread items).
Is anyone else having this problem? I tried the “reset” option, but to no avail. Still blank pages for each RSS subscription.
Ok, so it looks like maybe it wasn’t as big of a problem as I thought it was. I went back into Feeds and clicked on the feed that had unread items….still a completely blank page. But I clicked the little “refresh” button on the bottom-right corner of the screen, and after about 3-5 seconds, everything showed up (the new unread items, and all the previously read items), and when they appeared, so did a message that said “New feed items retrieved”.
So technically, it’s working. But it seems like an necessary step for viewing all your feed items. If this is actually the way it is for everybody, is there chance for an update in the future where all the feeds are actually retrieved when you open the app, instead of having to click “refresh” to see each feed’s items?
Or maybe I just have some setting wrong.
Other than my one complaint, I’m loving the integration! Keep up the good work!
Seems to be a good product, but I have the same problem with blank pages and when I try to refresh all, it crashes.. every time
What’s wrong with me ?
To all with the initial Google syning issues, first you may need to restart your iPhone after installing the update. This goes for all application updates just to be sure you have a clean slate to work with. In the settings, be sure to have a refresh interval set unless you intend to do your syncing manually. The first time Feeds starts up it will take a bit of time to do the initial sync with Google. Wait for it to finish the initial sync before accessing your feed items. Post here with results if it worked or not.
If you still have problems, go into the Settings for Google and turn ON the reset option. This will resync with Google on the next start and then it will turn itself back to OFF.
Mike
It still crashes on the first sync…
@ Brett:
That badge issue is related to (I think) the number of unread items you have per feed. I notice that when I have 1000+ unread items in one folder, the badge on the main application page (the… iPhone’s actual app icon pages…) that the badge will show up truncated or the text will bound outside of the width of the badge graphic.
It returns to normal when I have < 1000 items unread.
@ Mike/Admin:
I think the next patch – regardless of Google Reader tweaking – should be strictly focused on optimization, code cleanup, and stability.
Then return to the Google Reader functionality. Nothing is perfect – but everything has the opportunity to be sub-par.
Functionality wise… Feeds is great.
Stability wise… Feeds is sub-par, period. Not that I could do better, but you did charge me for it. Just being honest. Good work on this update – I actually got around to setting up Google Reader as a result. THANKS!
Mine works fine now. As I said, i needed to throw that “reset” switch in preferences (system settings) for the first sync.
As someone else suggested, reboot the phone. Hold the top button until you get the red switch on the screen, turn it off. Then turn it back on with the top button, you see the Apple icon and it takes a while to boot.
This fixes most crashes after updates, on many apps. Unless you’ve jailbroken it, in which case good luck.
Mike. Solid man, really solid release – it was worth the wait. Been playing with it and it’s working great — Thanks again. I’ll be sure to check this blog for any bugs that creep up, but overall — i’m makin FEEDS my primary RSS reader.
John, Glad you like it and thanks for the feedback. We all use Google Reader around here so we figured we should make sure it syncs really well and integrates all the features that we use daily.
Mike
Mike, I did the hard reset after some initial slow downs and it is working fine now. Great job to you and the team. Keep it up.
I love the Google reader intergration… However is there any way to change the order of categories like we used to be able to?
Alex, unfortunately Google does not expose the feed and category ordering. We are hoping they will make it public in a month or two when they officially release an interface for Google Reader.
Mike
Hi Mike, is there a way to stop it from updating as soon as i’ve read a thread on Feeds? ie. only updates google reader manually
Richo, As long as you have Internet access Feeds will sync read, shared and starred items as they happen. If you have no Internet access, Feeds will save the syncing for later.
Mike
After spending a lot of time, I have finaly found what the problem was. It comes from a specific site (http://www.leblogdevirginie.com/) which causes Feeds crashes…
It would be much better if this PAID program had the BUGS squashed BEFORE it was released. Trying to sync with Google, feeds is now UNUSABLE. Crashes EVERY time.
FIX.
jk, unfortunately some bugs cannot be tested for. We have no way of telling if a download from Apples server will occur as planned. To remedy the error, you can try restarting your iPhone. If that doesn’t work you will need to delete and redownload Feeds. It will not cost you anything to do this.
We apologize about the situation.
Mike
Mike,
is it possible for you to test with the url I gave in my previous message?
Thanks in advance
Mike – after downloading the update, deleting and reinstalling the app and cold-booting my iPhone a couple of times, this once mostly stable/somewhat squirrelly app – still the best newsreader available IMO – is now completely unusable with ANY of my feeds – I tested for about a half-hour last night (after mentioned chages) and still couldn’t get through more than one article without it crashing. I have the internal viewing option turned off to increase stability as recommended by you in settings. Also noting similar frustrations in recent reviews on the iTunes store. I’m kind of with JK….was this thing really ready for release or are we testing a beta? I’ve invested a ton of time with Feeds and hate the idea of having to switch to something else…..but I gotta be able to read more than one article
Hi wdh, we apologize about your difficulties. I can assure you that if we were aware of any bugs we most certainly would not have released an update. As mentioned above, the one thing we cannot test is how the application will function once downloaded from Apple’s servers and some odd bugs crop up on occasion. Is there a specific RSS feed that causes the issue? The more information you can provide about the problem the faster we will be able to fix it.
Mike
Gilles, I found the issue with the feed you posted. It looks like they are not following the RSS spec as they omitted a required field. I put a fix in to deal with the incorrect format of their feed and I will submit the patch to Apple in a few days. I may have a new way to deal with the embedded Safari instability that I just came up with and will be testing. If it turns out that it works, I will put it in with the update as well.
Mike
Mike – Google News is particularly bad as is a news feed from MacLife. Rolling Stone, several Dow Jones feeds and MacWorld are also not very stable – just now the app opened and immediately crashed before I selected anything! I can say with certainty that (my) crashes have increased by an order of magnitude (seriously) since installing the update over the weekend, so it seems credible to assume something’s up with the new app. Is there any way to rollback to the previous version? I’ll keep playing with it and try one more reinstall.
Bill
wdh, The only way to roll back is to delete and resync with iTunes. If you can pass along the feed URL’s that are giving you problems I will look at them immediately. Are you using the Google Reader sync or the standard Feeds sync?
Also, anyone who is experiencing crashes if you can send over your crash logs we will better be able to debug the issue. Crash logs are available in the following location (for a Mac): ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/YOUR_IPHONE_NAME
Mike
I bought Feeds last night when I discovered that it now integrates with Google Reader. I’ve been searching for the holy grail of Google Reader apps – sadly I’m still looking.
I’ve had a couple of crashes (and will dig out the logs and send them over to you, as requested), but in general the app doesn’t perform well. I’ve tried restarting the phone after the installation, but doesn’t help. I spent 35 minutes doing the initial feed sync last night (during which time the app is so sluggish it’s not usable), and performance after syncing isn’t good. Several times I go into feeds and the latest unread articles aren’t listed. I also had a situation where I was told I had -1 unread feeds.
In general, Feeds feels buggy and rough around the edges. Certainly far more so than it’s price tag would suggest. While Bylines doesn’t have all the features I need, it’s far more polished.
I’d love to work with you to move things forward with Feeds, because as I said, I want to find the perfect Google Reader app, so if you’re inclined please contact me or reply here to take the discussion further.
Cheers.
Where do you find the Google reader setting?
I believe I’ve updated from AppStore as there has been a message popped up when I open Feeds and explained about this new feature. However ever since then I’ve had hard time to find the setting to setup the google account etc. and having my GReader synced.
Thanks for any advice.
Hi Dan, The first sync can take a long time depending on your network connection and the number of feeds you have. Once you get fully through the first sync it should be much faster. You can speed Feeds up even more by only back syncing a small amount of time or not at all. This will allow Feeds to only download items that it doesn’t have. You can also set the feed sync interval to a larger number or even manually which will keep Feeds from syncing as often. I have found for myself that having back syncing off and a larger refresh interval is a good combination. This means that if I read some feeds on my computer they won’t show up read on my iPhone because the iPhone won’t redownload them to get the read status which is fine for me.
Any assistance we can get with crash logs or feeds that give problems would be wonderful. There are A LOT of RSS feeds out there and it is obviously impossible for us to test them all and in all configurations. We would not release an application that didn’t work. We use Feeds many times a day and for it not to work properly would be a hindrance.
Mike
Ken, You can find the GReader settings by going to your Springboard (desktop) and touching the Settings application. There is an entry for Feeds in there and if you scroll down you will see the GReader options.
Mike
This app looks very promising. I was really excited to try it but haven’t been able to get Google reader sync to work it just keeps asking me for the username and password. Am I missing something obvious? Something I need to turn on in Google settings? I have tried entering my user/pass in the app and on the apps settings page.
Devon
Hi,
Can you explain how you use my google username and password, and specifically how my password is protected? Specifically:
- Is my password sent in cleartext to the google reader service?
- Is it shared with any other third party (e.g. a proxy server of yours)?
- Is it stored in cleartext on the phone (and in the itunes backup)?
- Is it stored anywhere besides these places, e.g. on any server?
In general, I am reluctant to share my google credentials with someone I don’t know. Why not use Google’s token authorization system instead? See http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/.
Brian, Your Google username and password is never sent in cleartext. It is only sent once per launch directly to Google over an HTTPS connection. From that point on we use a Google token and SID for authentication. The password is only stored in one location on the device, in the user defaults database built into your iPhone. The only application that can access this information is Feeds. It is never, ever, ever sent to a proxy server of any kind and it is never sent as plain text.
Hope that answers your questions,
Mike
Devon, Entering your username/password in either the Settings application or in the popup in the application should get the same result. Are you sure you are entering the correct information? For the username, if your email address is XXXX@gmail.com you can just enter ‘XXXX’. Your normal Google password should work from there.
Let me know if that does it for you,
Mike
Hey guys….I upgraded last week or so when prompted. Since then, every time I open a feed on a site, it dies!
I’m on WordPress and a few private blogs that were working fine in the old version.
HELP?
SWC and all who posted with Feeds crashing since the update to version 0.99, with the help of some crash logs that a few users sent over we found an obscure bug that causes the crashes. We have patched the bug and sent an update to Apple for review. The bug only affects users who are not using the Google Reader integration. We apologize for the inconvenience. Anyone who posted that they had this issue or emailed us will be sent a promotional code for a free copy of Feeds to give to anyone whom you choose. Please send us an email if you don’t get it in a day or so.
Mike
Ok, I updated to the version released on jan 15th, and now I can’t see my unread counts unless I do a full refresh!
I don’t know if that’s a bug or it was intended to be so, and if it was intended, uhh, change it back, lol. I liked being able to see new feed counts without having to actually refresh anything, that was extremely useful!
I alluded from the comments that were made in the changelog that this was done on purpose, probably because enough people complained about it or something. If so, please offer a switch for those of us who can see the light. =)
ron
Hi ron,
Can you let me know what you have set for your Refresh Interval in the Settings? We actually do have it setup so that you will still get your unread counts without a full refresh but there are some other settings that can conflict.
Mike
Ellooo Mike,
Thanks for responding. =) Fyi In my experience feeds is the best rss reader on this thing called an iphone.
I’ve got my refresh rate set to manual, which is as it was before the upgrade. I’ve toggled the reset all switch a few times but to no avail. Is there a refresh interval I should have it set to?
Hi again,
After some testing, it seems I only get counts of any kind during, and immediately after a full refresh. If I close the program and then immediately go right back into it, I’ll have no counts of any kind left to greet me.
Hope the addition info helps. If not, help me help you, tell me in what ways I can further assist.
ron
Ron, Try setting your refresh interval to anything other than ‘Manual’ and let me know if that does it for you.
Mike
Well,
I set the refresh rate to five minutes, and after restarting the program 2 or 3 times it worked.
Now, how do I get it work while set to refresh manually? =)
Thanks again,
ron
Ron,
I will look into what works best for the manual refresh situation. It gets a bit tricky with Google Reader because of that fact that it’s accuracy requires an internet connection when the old Feeds integration was a bit different. Another user was asking about getting the unread counts when offline so perhaps I can roll both requests into one… In the meantime, just set the refresh to the highest number and it should grab them for you on startup even if it doesn’t do a full sync.
Mike
After I put in my GReader login/pass, Feeds just can pass the “loading” phase, it kept crashing. Oh well, guess my GReader has too many feeds to sync up.
OK, so after reboot my iphone the Feeds stopped crashing. However, there is no feed item in there only a bubble texting “unread count received” while I am sure there are plenty unread items.
Ken, How many feeds do you have? If it is a significant amount the first run will take a few minutes even over wi-fi. We have an update that is in review by Apple that should speed up Google Reader syncing so that might help as well. It should be available in a few days if all goes well with Apple.
Mike
Mike,
I experienced many of the problems described above with getting feeds to load and crashes. The best thing I found to do is go to an individual feed, hit the refresh, and then leave it for a few minutes. Patience is the key. I think the crashes were from trying to do something else during the refresh. It would be nice to have some visual feedback during the wait.
I downloaded feeds on 1/24 after exhastingly trying about a dozen iPhone readers, with emphasis on the ones that sync with Google Reader. Since I am just getting started with RSS seriously, I wanted to have the best app from the start. None are perfect, but Feeds seems to be the best by far, better than Bylines in that feeds will group stories by feed as well as categorize. Also feeds is 2-way syncing for reorganizing feeds.
One of the key features that I like is the large font for when my eyes get tired!
- Rob
Rob, thanks for the feedback. We just finished (literally about 10 minutes ago) a change that should make syncing a lot more responsive. We moved all syncing and saving of downloaded items to the background so it hopefully wont affect the rest of the application. More info to come as we test.
Mike