Google Needs To Improve Its Mobile RSS Client

How many of you out there use Google's Reader RSS client to compile your feeds? I use it on my desktop, where it works just fine. Using the mobile version, however, is not so satisfying.Google obviously has big intentions in the mobile market. It has been snapping up smaller providers of mobile-focused content and service providers like mad the last few months (including today's purchase of Jaiku). On Monday it became clear that while there won't be a gPhone, there will be a Google Mobile operating system that is based on Linux. As part of that news, Google mentioned that it is working on extending more of its software services to mobile devices.

That's great. But what about tweaking some of the mobile services it already has? I'd suggest it start with the mobile version of Google Reader.

On the iPhone is it fairly fast and usable. Because the screen is large enough, you can see a good number of your headlines to get a quick feel for the news that's happening. This is the default view. Even though some of the links at the bottom of the screen are rather small, you can jump to any particular subscription and view just that outlet's feeds if you know it might have fresher information. It is usable, but I wish the two different views were better integrated, as they are in the browser version.

On a "regular" mobile phone--one with a small screen--the experience is far worse. I tested it out on a Nokia 6555, which runs Series 40 3rd Edition, and even though I was browsing in an area covered by AT&T's 3G network, it was painfully slow. Scrolling down pages and viewing the content is a serious test of sticktuitiveness. You really have to want to check that particular feed, because the rendering time for each page is slow, depending on the site. Same as on the iPhone, you can only view the headlines, or the subscriptions and not both at the same time. Again, it is usable, but I find it cumbersome.

Would a device-side RSS reader client be a better solution? Probably.

What are your experiences? Anyone out there using a different browser/mobile-based RSS reader?