After much evolution and over a year and a half later, the Mac-compatible beta has finally arrived, with only a few weaknesses to be found.

After grabbing the beta of the Times Reader and running the installer, I was dismayed to find the following window:

Yes, the Times Reader requires Microsoft Silverlight to run. After being a little disappointed and set aback, I chose to install Silverlight (a link is presented in the installer), and I continued with the installation. After logging into my New York Times account (totally free to register), the Times Reader began to populate my first issue. It starts with the front page, and then continues updating all the other sections in the background. A simple preferences menu provides a way to control syncing with the Times website. After a short wait, the user is presented with the front page.

Notice the progress bar in the top right corner, and the progress (or lack thereof) represented. I did notice the first issue took quite a while to download, but I’m sure some of that was the archived articles it may have been retrieving. After finding an interesting article and selecting the headline, you are taken straight to the article view.

Notice the nice, clean, ad-free layout. This was the overall goal of the Times Reader, and I would argue they were successful in their efforts. The reader presents a clean and straightforward view of the paper, even more so than the actual paper publication itself. While many might wonder what the use of a standalone desktop version of a popular website might be, I have found myself reading through the Times Reader rather than either the website or an RSS feed.

Normally, the Times Reader requires a paid subscription after a 30-day trial period. The Mac beta does not have that same restriction. You can find the Reader here in the “First Look” section of the New York Times website. For those who haven’t installed Silverlight, you can find it at Microsoft’s Silverlight site or initiate the download when asked in the installer. Let us know in the comments what you think of the Times Reader, and whether this wave of standalone web-apps (both Silverlight and AIR based) are the wave of the future, or a temporary fad.

This is where ReadAir by Adam McGrath steps in. ReadAir is a a desktop interface to Google Reader, courtesy of Adobe’s somewhat-new AIR platform. The result is a very comfortable and beautiful Mac-friendly reading experience that lives outside of your favorite browser. As soon as ReadAir is installed and launched, the user is presented with a simple account login screen, and some General Preferences to control how often feeds are refreshed.

After the user’s Google login information is entered and the magic ‘OK’ button is selected, feeds populate inside the main interface automatically, retaining Google Reader’s folder structure. The overall layout is generally similar to Reader, but has been greatly dressed up to mimic a native Mac application. In fact, at first glance, ReadAir could very easily be mistaken for an Apple-created program.

The majority of the online reader’s features are available in ReadAir, including the ability to sort feeds and star posts as desired. As a word of fair warning, there is a little way to go before the application is quite ready to become your primary reader. Attempting to add feeds from straight within ReadAir yields nothing but a blank white window, and there is a long list of to-do’s on the developer’s Google Code page. Some of the to-do’s are crucial, such as an unread message count badge for the dock icon, and keyboard shortcuts.

Despite these temporary shortcomings, ReadAir is an excellent way to smoothly integrate Google Reader into your desktop experience, and certainly an application worth keeping an eye out for in the next coming weeks as more and more improvements arrive.ReadAir is a free and open-source download from the author’s Google Code page.

It requires Adobe AIR to install and run.