Today there was a new newsreader app released for the iPad: Times by a small Canadian company name Acrylic. Since I do almost all of my reading on the iPad these days, as do a lot of other people apparently, it was natural that I had to drop everything and get this app. It is a bit expensive at $7.99, but it looked like it might be worth the exchange.
I don’t usually feel the need to review iPad apps, but since I spend a lot of time every day (seemingly) reading news feeds on my iPad, I was excited at the prospect of a more visually appealing solution. So, let’s take a look.
First Impressions
On initial launch it comes (wisely) pre-populated with news feeds from a variety of popular sources (Wired, EnGadget, Digg, ESPN), in a few common categories (like Technology, Arts, Science and Sports).
You get what you expect with any iPad app, columns of scrollable (flickable) headlines and teasers which link to your artices, all formatted nicely.
The thing that struck me about this is its similarity to Flipboard. I expect they will be competing for the newsreader space as Flipboard adds RSS feeds.
Ups and Downs
Overall I think it has some good improvement over text-centric readers (e.g. Reeder, Google Reader). However, there are limited sharing options (email, Twitter, Facebook) and no integration with Instapaper or other services. (We will see if they intend to launch their own service.)
The feature I was hoping for, and disappointed to see missing, was integration with Google Reader. Without this, you are required to manually set up all your content feeds. This may be a deal breaker for a lot of potential users. But as with so many apps, I will just wait for the next update. For now it’s a definite weakness over my faithful Reeder app.
A nice surprise was that once I left the comforts of the coffee shop wifi signal and returning to a location without wireless internet available to me, I discovered that the app stores all your downloaded feed data (without images) for offline viewing. This definitely will be a nice feature if you commute (by bus or train!) or just don’t have access to wireless. Your iPad doesn’t need to become a brick just because WIFI isn’t available.
However, if you subscribe to sources which provide only partial feeds or link aggregators like Daring Fireball or Digg, they will remain partial feeds. You may want to gripe to the source of those article feeds.
While it won’t replace my current news reader, I think it’s demonstrates a cool step towards some really nice improvements in RSS feed consumption. Is it worth $8.00? I’ll leave that up to you.
Summary
Pros:
- Visually and physically intuitive .It feels like a newspaper and, even though I’ve already ranted about treating the iPad like a book, it might be good option for Kindle fan, or someone not inclined to read text-based RSS feeds.
- It may continue the ubiquity of RSS (which may or may not be a positive depending on your position).
- Offline viewable (sans images) for commuting or no wifi areas.
Cons:
- The setup may be too laborious for some.
- No Google Reader integration. Painful. I hope, for their sake, that they change their minds.
- Bookshelf idea is cute, but I’m not sure I will find it useful or not. Time will tell.
- Limited sharing options (email, Twitter, Facebook only).
- No support for InstaPaper.
