Publisher Wars: Six Free Newspaper Apps for iPad Reviewed 4
The iPad is the first device with the potential to radically change how we read our news. The glossy screen is (almost) perfectly suited for the consumption of news and articles, photos and videos. Newspapers jump on the opportunity, after all it is a glimpse of hope for them, for the first time in years.
Here is the iPadManiac review of six popular newspaper apps.
The New York Times Editors’ Choice
This app was presented at launch and is to today the most popular free newspaper app on the iTunes app store. As the tile says, this app features a selection of content from the New York Times in News, Business, Technology, Opinion and Features.
The app is easy and straight forward to navigate. Touching an article opens it, swiping to the right flips the page. Reading is easy on the eyes, thanks to a three or four column layout (depending on horizontal or vertical screen orientation) and the use of large photos.
Apart from that core, there are not many frills. A few image galleries are included in each edition, and apparently sometimes videos even if we did not find one yet.
What is slightly unnerving if the NY Times is your daily read is that apparently they apparently have only one advertiser. The blue Chase Sapphire ad is on every page. There are even interstitials between articles with that ad. If I was in the US, by now I would have gotten that credit card for sure.
When in offline mode, the app displays the last downloaded issue, preserving all features of online navigation. The app is completely free with no registration required.
Our summary:
Excellent app, delivering quality NY Times news without distractions. But please, no more blue ads.
Get it from the App Store.
Financial Times Mobile Edition
The Financial Times is a business person’s classic reading. Same so on the iPad: while released first only on May 14th 2010, it has quickly climbed the top lists.
The app shows news on the familiar salmon color background in a similar layout as the dead-tree edition. When no wireless connection is available, it tries to show the last downloaded edition and you can navigate it as usual (same as with the NY Times app). Again reading is straight forward: touching an article opens it, swiping continues the page to the right.
After reading three articles, you are required to register. Fortunately the registration is free and easy enough by just asking for your name and email address. This gives you access to 10 articles per month. There is a special going on right now though that allows you to read unlimited articles until July 31st. I imagine that 10 articles per month would not be good enough for anyone to keep the app installed. You want more, you have to pay for a subscription.
Similar to the NY Times app, there are not many additional frills. Image galleries are sparse. There is a dedicated section with videos, but they only work when online.
Our summary:
Business news delivered straight to your iPad. But only 10 reads per month?
Get it from the App Store.
USA Today
For lighter news reading, many turn to the USA Today. However, the iPad app has some drawbacks in comparison to the other apps in this review.
First, the only available sections are Frontpage Stories, Money, Sports and Life. In all irony, they left out the Tech section on the iPad.
In offline use, quite some content is missing: Days in Photos, News Snapshots shows empty; if you didn’t open for example the Money section while online, it shows empty; weather is empty.
Then, layout. The app just does not look very polished. The frontpage uses a sans-serif font for article bodies, the articles pages suddenly use a serif font. Paragraphs are not indented as in the NY Times app, photos seem slapped on the page.
Navigation is more awkward too. To read the second page of an article, you swipe downwards (both NY Times and FT app swipe to the right). Swiping to the right opens the next article in this app. Touching the logo to open different sections is also less than intuitive.
Our summary:
Nice try from USA Today, but some way to go until it’s a good example for iPad news reading.
Get it from the App Store.
WSJ – The Wall Street Journal
Asking for registration right on the launch of an app is always a turn on. However, the WSJ app kinda makes up for it after registration. It is beautifully designed and easy to navigate. This app must have the best image integration I’ve seen so far: Nearly every article has multiple images embedded straight in the article as a gallery, and a touch of the lens symbol opens the images in a larger pop-up.
Navigation is standard with touch to open article, swipe right to open next page. Each page displays a right side bar with more articles from the current section.
Unfortunately, probably around 75% of all articles are available to paid subscribers only.
Our summary:
If you are a business type and can expense the subscription, here is a great app for you.
Get it from the App Store.
AP News
To see the User Interface of the AP News app is refreshing, especially after testing five other newspaper apps that all follow the layout style of a printed paper. The AP News apps certainly deviates from that. The style is more desktop-like, with news items, images and videos laid on the table like a bunch of note-its.
Unfortunately, after a first glance and actually trying to use the app to – who would have though people use it for that? – read news, it’s clear that the user interface is not only different, but just worse than the others. Headlines on the frontpage screen consist of a maximum of six words, with no teaser or article preview text. Plaing a video from the frontpage takes a total of three touches ( no kidding. first you touch the video to open the video player area; then you select the video you want to play, even if you already did that explicitely on the frontpage; then you touch play to actually play it as there is no auto-play).
As one reviewer on iTunes put it: it looks like the marketing department insisted on eye candy, and nobody actually used the product.
Our summary:
If you want your news to look like a badly designed Flash app from 2001, this is your app.
Get it from the App Store.
BBC News
While the BBC app also follows a non-paper layout approach, its user interface certainly works better than the AP News’.
In horizontal orientation, the left half of the screen displays an article overview with photos and headlines, the right side displays the actual article. On the vertical screen orientation, the article overview is on the top.
You can chose your favorite sections to be displayed on the article overview. Inside an article, navigation is also straight forward with swipe right to display the next article, vertical swipe to scroll the current article.
The app also features live BBC radio and videos.
The only downside is that in offline mode some images in articles are missing.
Our summary:
Great content, easy to use app; our British friend have a winner.
Get it from the App Store.
Unhonorable Mention: Time Magazin
Presenting your app as free, but having pay content inside – sucks. Give us at least free previews.
iPadManiac Picks
In my toilet, commuting and evening reading, I stick with the NY Times and BBC apps. Both present great content in an iPad-friendly way – this is the newspaper of 2010.
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What, no Guardian? I would have thought The Guardian’s app deserved a place on your list.
Good point! I will have a look at the app later today and add it.
Actually, I just checked this, and I did not find an iPad app for the Guardian. It is only available for iPhone and paid as well. No?