When Google first showed us the reader mode they were developing for Chrome, it worked about as well as an ostrich can fly and looked like it would get at least an honorable mention at the world's ugliest dog contest. The latest version of the reader mode is not available to the average user, but it looks like it works much better than it did four months ago.
Android Police reports that a new version of the reader mode has shown up in the Chrome Devs release channel and the beta release channel. They report that it looks good but is hard to access:
By default, there is no way to reach reader mode without first being prompted. Let me tell you, I really struggled trying to find web pages that will produce such a prompt. I'm not sure whether Google is being overly conservative at first in showing it or if there is just some bugginess. The first time I went to the Google Doodle page (thanks to our tipster Nicholas who found it there) you see in the screenshots, I wasn't prompted. After restarting the browser, I was.
Once you're in the reader mode, you can change the background, adjust the font face and font size. There aren't any other options, but on the upside that is three more options that we didn't have back in February.
Furthermore, the reader mode is now grabbing the images in an article, and not just the text. That is a big improvement (it's also a feature that competing extensions already have).
AP also report that you can change the likelihood of being prompted by the reader mode option. The prompt can be disabled, or it can be set to appear on all pages, just pages with article content, or only on pages with long articles.
Again, this reader mode hasn't been released to the public. As such, it may be a little early to report on the new reading mode, but from what AP says it looks almost as useful as competing browser extensions like Readability.
It's worth noting, though, that Chrome's native reader mode has a feature which the competing extensions lack. This reader mode works in Chrome on Android, which does not support extensions, plugins, or addons.
On the other hand, the stock Android web browser works adequately well with Readability, so it's not like you're completely lacking in options.
Chromium Devs via Android Police
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