Using an iPhone helped convert me into a Google Reader fiend in 2008. Both the standard and mobile versions are speedy and have excellent user interfaces, and keeping everything in sync is easy since it’s all kept in the cloud. Moreover, Google keeps improving both versions. Reader is so good my wife uses it all the time, and I could never adequately explain how to use NetNewsWire (which is still an excellent app).

There is one thing I wish Reader could do: let me create a search-based “smart tag” to filter my incoming feeds and collect stuff meeting my search criteria in a folder or tag I could read first (or mark it read so I never see it in the first place).

Gmail already does this as do Apple Mail, Outlook and other email apps. Reader features search, so why not save the searches and use them to filter incoming items? not apply that idea to RSS?

During the campaign this might have been used to filter out all articles containing references to a certain VP candidate. If search allowed us to access feed metadata, you might filter the DailyKos feed to show you articles by Markos himself right away (Reader doesn’t currently access all of the metadata like “author”)[1].

NNW does have smart searches to filter feeds, but I used it rarely. With the number of RSS subscriptions going up and using Reader via iphone while on the go, this one bit of functionality would be a great addition!

¹ Update (1/2/09): This morning I realized it is possible to create a “Kos-only” feed by filtering the dailykos.com feed using Yahoo Pipes: