To me, feed readers are the second best invention of the world of smart phones, the first being photography and camera apps. But then maybe to an avid reader, the order is different. Nevertheless, I do love these intelligent, often beautiful and always organized ways of reading.
Having tried almost every Feed Reading application, free or paid, on the market. From Pulse to Feedly to GReader to Google reader, and have come to know the short comings of all of these (But that is a separate story). And until today, I had never found something that completely satisfied me.
Today, I found Google Currents, and it took my heart and breath away! Opening the application for the first time, you are required to sign in to your google account and grant permission which is normal for all google applications. A small tutorial screen also defines the basic functions that Google Currents is to perform and then it says “Dive In”.
The application provides free Editions of magazines and converts your Feeds into beautiful magazines as well that it calls Editions. Hence the term Editions is used instead of Feeds.
The main interface of or the homescreen is incredibly beautiful. On the top half, there is a continuous slideshow of the highlights from Editions in your library in the form of pictures. On the bottom half are icons for all the Editions in your library and there is also an icon to add more. At the very bottom of the screen there is a settings button, a share button and search. All set and you’re ready to take the next step. Click an Edition.
That certain edition opens and Fetches new stories. Once that is done and you click a story, you are greeted with an excellently laid-out magazine which is extremely easy to read. Page scrolling is lefto to right just like some of the famous E Readers, and this makes the magazine very ‘Print-like’. The best feature though is the way it displays images within articles. Once you click an image, it beautifully displays it on a full screen and another click will take you back to the article again. You can easily pinch-zoom the images and the experience is beautiful, though there is no option to save the images. But that can be understood.
On the home screen, along with the library tab is another one which says trending and is self explanatory. There is an option to add more trends in the form of topics such as World, Business, Trends etc. Now comes the matter of adding feeds to the library. You can very easily search for feeds to be turned into Editions or you can choose from the catalogue. The catalogue includes free editions filed under different headers such as Featured, Recommended, News, Business, Design etc. Under these you can find some excellent Editions that can be added to your library with a small click. You can add as many Editions as you want in one go.
In settings, the major customizations that you can make are few. You can alter the text size, the way you sync your articles and preffered language for automatic translation. But I doubt this will ever need customization. Yes its that good.
Who should get it:
People who are fond of reading feeds and reading in general and people who want their readers to look beautiful.
Who shouldn’t get it:
You’ll be crazy not to use it. Yes we are judgmental but this thing beats Feedly by a huge margin.
Verdict:
If you have tried all Feed Readers and want to have an experience of reading a beautiful magazine on your phone or tablet, download Google Currents. It can even make an article on Justin Beiber look classy! Now that’s something.
Play store download link:
