IPhone Safari formatting

google-readeriphonemobile-safari

In previous versions of Mobile Safari, when I used Google Reader on my iPhone and clicked through to open an article on the New York Times or another news site, it would open in a mobile-optimized format. This made articles really easy to read on my iPhone, since I didn't have all the junk on the Times website competing for screen space with the actual article.

Because the format appeared to be universal, it was clearly being done within Safari (or by the mobile version of Google Reader) and not by all these sites. But for a while (perhaps since iOS 4.x) articles are opened in in their normal formats, without being modified at all for mobile browsers.

Is anyone familiar with this change and what might have caused it? Something in the mobile version of Safari or of Google Reader?

Best Answer

It's a Google Reader setting. Scroll to the bottom of the Google Reader mobile page. Select "Settings". There's a checkbox you can tick that says "Reformat linked web pages for mobile browsers".

If you're using Google Reader a lot on your mobile phone, you may like a dedicated app. Reeder is great.