Google Reader got an update today, but it’s more than an updated news reader – it’s a taste of the future of the Web:

We on the Reader team are heavy mobile Safari users. To make our (and your) Reader iPhone experience better, we wanted to really take advantage of the iPhone’s capabilities.

Today we’re releasing a new beta version of Reader designed for the iPhone and other mobile phones with advanced browsers. You can use it by visiting http://www.google.com/reader/i/ on your phone.

This new version is designed to offer many of the same features as the desktop, while making it quick and easy to act on items. If you’ve used list view, then it should be familiar to you. Scan the titles for an item that interests you, tap and it expands in place. Starring, sharing, and keeping unread are done in place, so you never have to leave the list view or refresh the page. We think it’s a very fast way to power through your reading list.

The overall iPhone experience is years ahead of its competition, but iPhone Web apps have lagged behind.

Google’s update brings us an important Web app that’s carefully tuned to the capabilities of the iPhone. It makes better use of the screen space, there are fewer wait times, and it’s clear that the people that designed the app are eating their own dog food.

How long will it be until mobile content creation apps catch up with this? Don’t be surprised if, within 6 months, there are iPhone blogging, podcasting and vlogging apps as sophisticated as this.