UX Evolutions: News on iPad

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The post discuss Flipboard and Newsy, two news apps I've been using for quite a time. Of the two, Flipboard, is the one I use most. I use it mainly to find posts in Twitter and Facebook that I've missed.

A post from ReadWriteWeb by Richard MacManus has the whole story. Here is a part:

What Makes Flipboard Better Than Other News Apps?

One of the first apps to take advantage of the iPad's unique functionality was Flipboard. A self-styled "social magazine," Flipboard allows users to browse news and other content using a sophisticated but easy-to-use user interface. In fact earlier this month, Flipboard upgraded its UI to an even slicker, faster version.

When I think about what makes Flipboard a better user experience than the news apps of traditional media like The New York Times and Washington Post, there are two things that stand out. The first is that it's simply a pleasing experience to flip through stories using Flipboard's hand-swiping page turning UI. It makes it easy and fast to browse new stories. The second is the ability to customize your Flipboard, using content from all over the Web - RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr (and lately, Instagram). The ease of sharing content is a plus, too.
Read more: How Flipboard Was Created & its Plans Beyond iPad

Newsy: Why its Content is Better than The Daily

Newsy, which recently announced a new funding round of $1.5M, is another iPad app that has impressed me over the past year for its user experience. Newsy features 2-3 minute video presentations of news and it serves these up in an appealing user interface. Using your swiping finger, you neatly flick through categories and stories until you find one to watch.
Newsy is mostly innovative for its fresh approach to content. It analyzes news stories, providing context from a variety of external news sources - including niche blogs as well as more established media companies. Each news clip is just 2-3 minutes, so it's optimized for a device like the iPad - where attention spans aren't as long as they are for television or even PCs.
It's helpful to compare what Newsy is doing to what Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation attempted to do with its iPad-only news app, The Daily. It's a little apples vs. oranges, as Newsy is focused on video while The Daily is mostly text. But from a pure content perspective, The Daily has two big issues: firstly a lack of choice for the consumer, and secondly the blandness of the content that is on offer. By comparison, Newsy goes out of its way to link to external sources (so there's plenty of choice) and its snappy video presentations are anything but bland.
Read more: Newsy: The Story Behind its Innovative News App


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