Filed under: iPhone, App Review
News apps! Get your News apps!
MSNBC recently added an iPhone app to the store, so we thought it was a good time to take a look at a few news apps.
The gold standard for news on the iPhone is the USA Today app. Love them or hate them, the USA Today punchy writing style feels right at home on the iPhone. News can be received from a wide range of mobile sources, and it's the design of this app that makes it stand out. I would love to have the authors pack my suitcase the next time I travel, since they have found a way to cram an incredible amount of information into a very small package. Using persistent buttons on the bottom of each screen, you can get to Headlines, Sports Scores, Weather, Photo Galleries, and Snapshots (which are a set of insta-polls), from anywhere.
What makes it special is that, along with the local weather, at the top of most category screens there is a sliding set of sub-categories allowing you to get to just what you want in no time. For example, if you wanted to get the score of the Yankees' game, just tap Scores, and the sub-categories of NFL, MBL, NBA, NCAAF and NCAAB appear at the top of the screen. Tap MLB and there it is. Two taps total.
Similarly, tapping Headlines brings up sub-categories of: Top News, News, Money, Sports, Life Tech and Travel. When in any category, tap Top Stories and you can set a default for the type of story you would like to see first. For example, under the sub-category of Money, you can choose to set the default to: Top Stories, Markets, Economy, Cars, Personal Finance or Industry. Set it up once and you'll be able to drill down to specific results in a universe of information with just a few taps.
Tap on Share Article and you can Email, Text, Twitter (your Twitter client can be chosen in the setup pane), or log into Facebook. in all the apps covered here, you can share, but this has the most robust feature set of the lot. The fit, finish and depth of the app is, okay I'll say it -- awesome. Weather is location enabled, the Picture Galleries are extensive and under Snapshots there are nine running polls in each of the four sub-categories of News, Sports, Money and Life. USA Today is not just for hotel rooms anymore.
The brand new MSNBC.com app is smaller in scope but quite a nice addition to mobile news. Upon launching, you are presented with a scrolling list of top stories that can be paused and viewed. The speed of scrolling is customizable. Tap on Menu and you'll know you are in the world of NBC since all the topics are presented on an individual feather in a colorful circle of NBC peacock feathers.
The feather motif is continued throughout the app. Choosing Twitter, for example, brings up the Twitter feeds of nine NBC accounts. The list includes personalities like davidgregory to shows like todayshow, which doesn't happen to be on MSNBC last time I looked, but it's all in the family. You can also choose to read all of them. Adding Twitter feeds and blogs are nice touches providing personality to news reporting. Most Show leaves bring up videos, which can only be played on Wi-Fi. This is somewhat of a limitation. Tapping on Share lets you either Tweet or Email a story. Overall it's a solid and well designed app.
The Rachel Maddow Show app, like that of her parent network MSNBC, was developed by the Zumobi network. In both, the graphic branding is similar. This app looks like the Maddow show with little torn off notes seemingly stuck to the flag background used on air. The content feels like the Maddow show, smart and a bit whimsical. When launched you are brought to a screen with the Mind Over Chatter snippet most prominent.
You can scroll right or left to see more of the screen and find more snippets titled: Photos, Twitter, Media, Newsvine, Wikiquote, Guest List, Podcast and Air America. Since the main screen is really three screens large, it would make sense to use landscape mode, but neither this or any of the other apps mentioned use landscape mode for anything other than playing videos. I would love this to be corrected in a future version. The videos in this app are not limited to Wi-Fi, and work fine on my 3G connection. Under Mind Over Chatter there are tabs containing videos of repeating segments of the show including, Talk Me Down, Scrub, Rinse and Repeat, and Just Enough, along with a segmented version of the latest show.
Being a digital version of the Rachel Maddow Show, it's not surprising to find that the app is a 24/7 Twitterfest. Under just about anything you'll see a Tweet This button and when it's not there (as in the Media category, which brings in show related stories from various places), you'll find it right at the top of the screen as a button. If you choose Twitter you'll get Rachel's feed with a Tweet button on top that will let you send a Tweet, but not read it after it's sent.
There are a few things that can't be tweeted; quotes from her Wiki, or Podcasts which provide either video or audio of the last full show (a nice touch, by the way). On the downside there are a few missteps, like choosing Newsvine which purports to contain related links for each show. What you find, however, aren't links at all, but a few topics covered on the show in plain text that often seem cut off in mid-stream.
I like this app quite a bit. It's not as polished and strictly organized as the USA Today app, but it feels like the show, wry, friendly and welcoming, nailing the personality of the Rachel Maddow Show perfectly.
OK, after so much from the left, what has the right to offer? Fox News doesn't really have a news app. What they do have is the Fox News U-Report app which contains no news at all. This app accesses the camera to take a picture that can be sent to Fox News for potential on-air usage. That's it.
I've listed the apps in order of how much real news they provide with USA Today's being all news, MSNBC being news and commentary and Rachel Maddow's being news, commentary and attitude. Personally I'd like to see more attitude. It's fun and makes the news so much more entertaining. I can't wait for Keith Olbermann to release an app. I can already see the picture of my iPhone screen cracking.
Note: we covered the AP News app back in May, although the latest version adds push notifications.
The gold standard for news on the iPhone is the USA Today app. Love them or hate them, the USA Today punchy writing style feels right at home on the iPhone. News can be received from a wide range of mobile sources, and it's the design of this app that makes it stand out. I would love to have the authors pack my suitcase the next time I travel, since they have found a way to cram an incredible amount of information into a very small package. Using persistent buttons on the bottom of each screen, you can get to Headlines, Sports Scores, Weather, Photo Galleries, and Snapshots (which are a set of insta-polls), from anywhere. What makes it special is that, along with the local weather, at the top of most category screens there is a sliding set of sub-categories allowing you to get to just what you want in no time. For example, if you wanted to get the score of the Yankees' game, just tap Scores, and the sub-categories of NFL, MBL, NBA, NCAAF and NCAAB appear at the top of the screen. Tap MLB and there it is. Two taps total.
Similarly, tapping Headlines brings up sub-categories of: Top News, News, Money, Sports, Life Tech and Travel. When in any category, tap Top Stories and you can set a default for the type of story you would like to see first. For example, under the sub-category of Money, you can choose to set the default to: Top Stories, Markets, Economy, Cars, Personal Finance or Industry. Set it up once and you'll be able to drill down to specific results in a universe of information with just a few taps.
Tap on Share Article and you can Email, Text, Twitter (your Twitter client can be chosen in the setup pane), or log into Facebook. in all the apps covered here, you can share, but this has the most robust feature set of the lot. The fit, finish and depth of the app is, okay I'll say it -- awesome. Weather is location enabled, the Picture Galleries are extensive and under Snapshots there are nine running polls in each of the four sub-categories of News, Sports, Money and Life. USA Today is not just for hotel rooms anymore.
The brand new MSNBC.com app is smaller in scope but quite a nice addition to mobile news. Upon launching, you are presented with a scrolling list of top stories that can be paused and viewed. The speed of scrolling is customizable. Tap on Menu and you'll know you are in the world of NBC since all the topics are presented on an individual feather in a colorful circle of NBC peacock feathers.
The feather motif is continued throughout the app. Choosing Twitter, for example, brings up the Twitter feeds of nine NBC accounts. The list includes personalities like davidgregory to shows like todayshow, which doesn't happen to be on MSNBC last time I looked, but it's all in the family. You can also choose to read all of them. Adding Twitter feeds and blogs are nice touches providing personality to news reporting. Most Show leaves bring up videos, which can only be played on Wi-Fi. This is somewhat of a limitation. Tapping on Share lets you either Tweet or Email a story. Overall it's a solid and well designed app.
The Rachel Maddow Show app, like that of her parent network MSNBC, was developed by the Zumobi network. In both, the graphic branding is similar. This app looks like the Maddow show with little torn off notes seemingly stuck to the flag background used on air. The content feels like the Maddow show, smart and a bit whimsical. When launched you are brought to a screen with the Mind Over Chatter snippet most prominent.
You can scroll right or left to see more of the screen and find more snippets titled: Photos, Twitter, Media, Newsvine, Wikiquote, Guest List, Podcast and Air America. Since the main screen is really three screens large, it would make sense to use landscape mode, but neither this or any of the other apps mentioned use landscape mode for anything other than playing videos. I would love this to be corrected in a future version. The videos in this app are not limited to Wi-Fi, and work fine on my 3G connection. Under Mind Over Chatter there are tabs containing videos of repeating segments of the show including, Talk Me Down, Scrub, Rinse and Repeat, and Just Enough, along with a segmented version of the latest show.
Being a digital version of the Rachel Maddow Show, it's not surprising to find that the app is a 24/7 Twitterfest. Under just about anything you'll see a Tweet This button and when it's not there (as in the Media category, which brings in show related stories from various places), you'll find it right at the top of the screen as a button. If you choose Twitter you'll get Rachel's feed with a Tweet button on top that will let you send a Tweet, but not read it after it's sent. There are a few things that can't be tweeted; quotes from her Wiki, or Podcasts which provide either video or audio of the last full show (a nice touch, by the way). On the downside there are a few missteps, like choosing Newsvine which purports to contain related links for each show. What you find, however, aren't links at all, but a few topics covered on the show in plain text that often seem cut off in mid-stream.
I like this app quite a bit. It's not as polished and strictly organized as the USA Today app, but it feels like the show, wry, friendly and welcoming, nailing the personality of the Rachel Maddow Show perfectly.
OK, after so much from the left, what has the right to offer? Fox News doesn't really have a news app. What they do have is the Fox News U-Report app which contains no news at all. This app accesses the camera to take a picture that can be sent to Fox News for potential on-air usage. That's it.
I've listed the apps in order of how much real news they provide with USA Today's being all news, MSNBC being news and commentary and Rachel Maddow's being news, commentary and attitude. Personally I'd like to see more attitude. It's fun and makes the news so much more entertaining. I can't wait for Keith Olbermann to release an app. I can already see the picture of my iPhone screen cracking.
Note: we covered the AP News app back in May, although the latest version adds push notifications.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Eva said 10:51AM on 6-29-2009
I like iNews. It has been consistently improving with each update. It does not require you to have a logon. You can add feeds by searching rather than requiring the actual link. It also has built-in links to some of the more popular news websites in it's instant news tab.
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Joshua Ochs said 10:56AM on 6-29-2009
I can't wait for a more effective version of Google News (beyond the mobile page). I don't want McPaper, and I don't want a specific network pushing its shows.
I want news, preferably from a variety of sources. Perhaps Google will get the message, but they're so focused on web pages as the be-all end-all of internet content that I doubt it.
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Barry Wiseman said 10:59AM on 6-29-2009
CNN is making an app which I"m looking forward to (although the CNN mobile site is very good). I'm not sure when it is being released, but there was a signup link on the cnn site to be notified when it was ready...
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Galley said 11:04AM on 6-29-2009
The New York Times app is so much faster on the 3GS. Another nice French-language news app is Le Monde.fr
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christomapher said 11:13AM on 6-29-2009
What about NewsPro from Thomson Reuters? No political lean or sensationalism with Reuters! That one is so easy to use, snappy and works in "offline" mode, so I can keep browsing the news in the subway.
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Gyroscope352 said 11:17AM on 6-29-2009
Olbermann? Give me a break. That's not even news. Heck, Maddow is hardly news.
Despite the ridiculous left-leaning of this article, It also seems to leave out some of the big news apps - most notably the New York Times app (which I love, would love it even more if it would actually download articles without having to view them so I can read it offline), and the WSJ app (which I have not tried, but have heard good things - plus it's free (!) [and right-leaning - probably the only one, but it's there and deserved a mention on the list of "apps that supposedly don't exist for the right]).
Might I suggest the next article about news apps be written by someone who actually cares about the news and not watching guys reinforce their opinion (rather obnoxiously). Meaning no Olbermann (or O'Reilly, for that matter). Come on, lets at least try.
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David said 12:32PM on 6-29-2009
While I happen to actually think Maddow is an excellent source of news most of the time, I do agree with the previous poster that this post is missing some very important news apps.
New York Times and Wall Street Journal HAVE to be on this list. So should the AP News app. Or the Huffington Post. That's off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more. I haven't tried the USA today app yet (will grab it now) but knowing USA today's content in the print version, I cannot imagine that its the leader.
And yes, while I enjoy Olbermann, I do agree that he (and O'Reilly) spend a lot of time obnoxiously pushing their opinions over hard news.
delay said 11:35AM on 6-29-2009
I have been using News Addict and really like it. It lets me review all the top news sites in 1 app. I also like the user interface of the app because I cn browse the sites in fullscreen mode.
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Nick said 11:35AM on 6-29-2009
Speaking of new Apps, apple finally accepted the 1.1 update for iAura, http://bit.ly/C7eZw [iTunes Link]
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James Donevan said 11:35AM on 6-29-2009
"makes the news so much more entertaining"
That says it all. How old are you?
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David Winograd said 2:15PM on 6-29-2009
"Journalism is the ENTERTAINMENT business."
Frank Herbert
"Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either."
Marshall Mcluhan
and I'm 56.
How old are you?
ShaneD said 11:42AM on 6-29-2009
I can't believe you skipped the Wall Street Journal News app!
I used to use teh USA Today app, but switched when WSJ's came out.
It's cleaner than USA Todays, and has more real news. 1/2 of what's in USA Today is sports and Hollywood 'news', and the News and Money tabs have only a few more categories.
WSJ has FAR more news from every possible category in Business, Politics, Economy, Technology, World news, and everything in between. they don't have the cool slider bar, but you can customize your favorite categopries as tabs at the bottom, so you can actually access them in 1 tap, not 2 like USA Today's. And if you want to jump to a section you do not have set up in your tabs, you just tap 'More' and then the category. Still only 2 taps, just like USA Today's.
USA Today has all the color coordinated sections just like their newspaper does, and the WSJ app is all black. So if you're more into looks than content, the USA Today app might be your thing. But if you want the best access to News, it's hard to beat the WSJ app.
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brett said 12:18PM on 6-29-2009
An entire article about news apps and you don't mention the NYT or WSJ, the two most important in the App Store? wtf? A Rachel Maddow app is hardly "news". It's entertainment, if that's your cup of tea.
Typical TUAW fare here.
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BabyGotMac said 12:26PM on 6-29-2009
Anyone tried News Addict yet?
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=318726874&mt=8
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PMartinez527 said 12:29PM on 6-29-2009
NYTimes was recently updated for 3.0 and will now download all the news for offline reading, quickly. It did this before but it used to take forever to download. A major improvement in my opinion.
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Ian said 12:28PM on 6-29-2009
Anyone who uses "gold standard", "news", and "USA Today" in the same sentence should have their keyboard confiscated.
What I want to know is, why do we need an app for a newspaper? I like the Washington Post iPhone-optimized website quite a lot, and I don't need to keep an app for it, just an icon!
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Steve said 1:24PM on 6-29-2009
I like EZ News USA. It has a sweet user interface and plenty of options. The developer also has different news apps for different categories..ez gossip, ez sports and ez tech. It's the best news app I have used and I've tried them all.
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lauren said 4:58PM on 6-30-2009
I love how the Fox News app wants YOU to do the reporting for them. Pretty much just like the channel.
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Pepijn Bruienne said 2:03PM on 6-29-2009
I agree with others on the app choices. Ms. Madow is opinion and not news, same for Mr. Olbermann. Leaving out major apps like NYT, WSJ is additional sloppiness. But then the writer of the article didn't really set out to write a news story but an op-ed masked as news -- FNC bash and all. Bravo sir.
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Steve in Denmark said 3:01PM on 6-29-2009
That's all very well, but surely, when we're talking real news, we're talking the BBC.
They at least call a game played with the feet 'football', and a game played with your hands...Rugby.
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