AP Mobile for iPhone still a dog for many

Well, it *is* the AP...they can't do anything right. The latest debacle with their attempt to "license their content" being a prime example.

I only keep it around for the Push notifications. I access the app just to clear off the badge. It's a mess.

I use APMobile for its useful breaking news notifications (which seem to be half important news and half celebrity death news). But a major problem is, if you do not read the message before you unlock your iphone's screen, there is no way to read it again. The app shows a 1 on its icon to signal the unread message, but no way to see it when you open it.

My problem with the AP Mobile app is the content. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, a huge metro area with lots of news. However, under the "Local News" tab, AP Mobile gives me dozens of stories on lottery winners across the Southeast, and dozens of college and professional sports articles from across the Southeast. Sprinkled in there are a tiny number of stories that deliver actual news coming from Atlanta (civics, government, law enforcement, business, education and other topics).

I have absolutely no interest in lottery winners or sports, but there is no way for me to apply any filtering or indicate my preference. AP Mobile's idea of "local news" is very much not what I want to read.

I actually emailed the AP apps comment section and one of the VPs emailed me pretty quickly. They're working on a way to customize the updates. I complained because I don't really care about celebrity news.

the worst problem is that it delivers AP news, which is sophomoric. And yes, the NY TImes app gets better. There's also a good BBC reader (BBCReader). So who needs the AP?

Of course the application will manage to imbed ads; how else can AP make money? these apps are all about earning revenue. Eventually you will see half of the screen devoted to ads and the rest to the news. If they follow the way their other web sites go, when you click on a photo or video you'll first get a 30 second spot of advertising. Click on a story about cars, and first you have to watch 30 second advert for, what else, a new car. This will be funny when the story is about a drunk driver who drove a xxx model, and the advert is for the same car!

I agree with the all content of this article.

The Breaking News On app is junk. The Twitter site sucks too. Don't give Michael von Poppel any face time -- he's a tool.

In general, I think the AP News app is just a case of bad app design. They need to go back to the drawing board and really think what makes an app "great".

Also, in general, developers need to realize that tiny touch targets are incredibly annoying when designing custom interfaces. An easy example of this is Facebook 2.0 for the iPhone. Besides the fact that the home page is very cluttered, it hides a LOT of options because of a tiny scrolling target at the top for different options. Facebook 3.0 for iPhone definitely is a step in the right direction UI-wise. Now I'm not saying that every developer needs to make a custom UI to succeed, but they need to learn what UI elements are properly used for and adapt their content to fit that form.