Having Google Reader available when I’m not connected to the ‘net, is something I’ve wanted for a while. 

Luckily for me (I think) Google released Google Gears the other day – and made Google Reader implement it.

The idea itself is good – Being able to read your RSS feeds when you’re not connected to the ‘net, and have it sync back to the “mothership” (as the Googler’s put it) when you reconnect – marking read items as read, and downloading new content.

There’s a few key things missing though:

#1 – No Automatic Synchronisation.
I was hoping this would be something like Outlook in Exchange mode – i.e, I connect to a network, it realises it’s connected and updates all my items, sends mail that needs sending, downloading new bits, etc.

Google Reader however, doesn’t do this – it requires you to hit the Offline button, whence it takes a snapshot of some 2000 items (read? unread? latest? who knows).  Ideally it should do the synchronisation in the background – i.e when you’re connected, and it’s setup for offline usage – it should just sync in the background.

#2 – Doesn’t download even basic post resources (like images).

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER without images? ’nuff said. 

PS: Even if you’re actually connected, but that Offline button is pressed, you don’t get images.

#3 – Doesn’t remember previously sync’ed items (I think)

I go online. Then click offline – it pops up this little progress meter:

Once it’s finished syncing – if I hit online again, then offline – it pops up the same sync thingy, and takes just as long to download.

Okay, so Gears is a very very early beta*, and this is just the first implementation of Reader Offline, but I do hope they’ll fix these things and make it a truly seamless experience in later iterations.

* Aaron Boodman said something like “Google Gears is a real beta, not like our usual level of Beta” about a dozen times during his talk.