BioInspired! So What? Now What!

2013/01/21 significant changes to the instructions for subscribing (see comments for more details)

Google Currents is an Android (tablets, smartphones) and iOS (iPad, iPhone, but see comments) application that allows aggregation and publication of content on a wide range of portable devices.  I have converted the last four issues of the BioInspired! newsletter and would appreciate your feedback.  Key benefits:

• content 'pushed' automatically to allow offline reading (you control whether images are cached)
• reformatting of text and images to fit devices with different screen sizes
• easy navigation through the content
• ability to link back to the source content on the material (for posting comments, etc.)
• access to additional content from a wide range of publishers
• free and no ads (at least for now)

The following instructions are based on Android - see the comments for information relating to iOS.

If you are interested in participating in this evaluation you need to download the application from Google Play (aka. the Android Market) or from the Apple App Store.  Once you have installed the application, you need to log in with a Google account (sorry about that).  On Android, you should see something similar to the screenshot at the right (tap on the image to bring up a larger version).  Spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with some of the pre-subscribed publications.

Since the newsletter edition is not yet in the Google Currents catalog, you cannot search for it.  Open the browser on your mobile device and enter http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAow56uUAg/bioinspired_newsletter.  To save typing:

• visit this blog entry on your mobile device or e-mail yourself the link and open the e-mail on your mobile device
• tap on the link 

You should see something similar to the first screenshot below.  Launch the link in Google Currents.  In Currents, tap the Subscribe for free button.  Although sometimes the newsletter edition is displayed, you may also end up at one of the Currents 'sections' similar to the third screenshot.  To display the newsletter, you need to get to the sidebar.  In the latest version of Currents for Android, the little left-pointing arrow near the upper left gets you there. 

Scroll down the category list, tap on DESIGN to expand it, and then the BioInspired! Newsletter. Once the content is loaded, you should see something like the second screenshot below.  You should now be presented with a 'splash' screen listing the sections (four in this edition) and articles within the current edition.  Swipe up and down to view all sections/articles, or use the pull-down at the top to jump to a specific newsletter (you can also customize which newsletters you want to see in this screen).  If you swipe left or right from the 'splash' screen, you can see other editions that you are subscribed to.

You can tap on any article on the 'splash' screen to read it.  Swipe left to go to the next page - there is a progress indicator at the bottom that indicates the size of the article and where you are.  When you get to the end of the article, Google Currents takes you automatically to the next article on some devices.  For others, you can use the arrow at the lower right to 'fast forward' to the next article.  Tap images to make them larger.  You can swipe left and right to see all images within an article (again, there is a progress indicator at the bottom).  To get back to the article, use the 'back' key on your device.  You can access the Table of Contents using the list symbol at the lower right of the article pages.

Tapping near the top of an article brings up an action bar that allows you to share the article and save the article (I have not tested either of these).  On Android 4, the action bar also allows you to access the application menu that includes Text size, Search, Sync now, Settings and Help.  Search will list matches by Google Currents EDITIONS, ARTICLES within the open edition and FEEDS that you can subscribe to.  Search only works if you are online.

The Google Currents sidebar used to be accessed through the 'back' key but this no longer works in the latest version of the app.  Use the 'back' key and watch for the left-pointing arrow in the title bar.  Tapping it will bring up the sidebar where you can select different categories and editions.  There is a Customize button in each section that allows you to remove an edition.  You can also 'pin' images - they will be downloaded and cached so that you can view both the text and images without being online. 

If you try out Google Currents, please add your feedback as comments to this blog post.

Known issues:

• The articles are ordered within sections by the post date.  I 'fixed' the post date of issue 9.2 but the articles in the other three newsletters will not match what you see on the website.
• I need to add links back to the original article on the website allowing readers to rate the article and post comments.
• I downsized images in the web version of the newsletter and have not figured out if Google Currents has a way to link low-res and hi-res versions of an image.  I may need to stop using downsized images in the web version of the articles, which will impact anyone on a slow link. 
• Tables within articles do not render well (text is intermittently justified and cells do not have borders).
• It is possible to add captions to images (check out the 500px edition in the Entertainment section) but the details are unclear.
• How Google Currents selects the image for the 'splash' screen is not clear.  I suspect it ignores small images like the 'theme' thumbnails that appear at the beginning of all newsletter articles. 
• I have had no success subscribing to the newsletter edition on an iPhone runing iOS 6.