Written Android App Review
Many top news providers use their own Android apps to push their info agenda. Now the News Book – Independent Android app is a new way to get the news at a glance.
Interested in cutting to the quick of a story in an instant? Then you’ll want to pay attention to our Android app review of News Book – Independent.
Concept
News Book - Independent
The News Book – Independent Android app allows you to create a custom list of headline sources on the app’s homepage. The app then pulls headlines from these sources and gives them to you in an easy list. Tap any headline to view a brief (and I do mean very brief) summary of the article.
That’s it. No links to outside content, or entire articles.
At first I was a bit baffled by this app. You can choose to curate headlines from all the major title divisions at Al Jazeera TV, The News, CNN, Nation, BBC, Fox News, New York Times, BigNewsNetwork, CBC and OnePak.
Those are some serious news organizations. So I went through the list and checked off a few tech feeds, science topics and a couple world regions.
Once I got to the homepage I could click on any of my saved favorites to view a list of headlines. For some reason I assumed the app would link me to the actual article, video or content. It did not.
Each title has a one or two sentence synopsis to let me know what the article is generally about, and that’s it. So other than letting me know what headlines are out there, this app is relatively useless.
Layout & Design
News Book - Independent
News Book – Independent organizes news sources and titles in long lists with simple brand graphics highlighting each entry.
This isn’t rocket science, and I am glad that developers had enough foresight to put the current titles on separate pages.
The News Book – Independent Android app is simple to use and navigate. Just expect to do a little scrolling if you want to follow multiple news sources.
Value
In a market where we are spoiled by news aggregator apps such as News360 and World Newspapers, the News Book – Independent Android app seems a bit simple by comparison.
However I do applaud the app for working quite well and being a good source of extremely brief news nut graphs. If they would include links to external sources this app’s value would double instantly for me. I think I’ll hang on to it to see what happens.
Besides, News Book – Independent is absolutely free. So it’s worth giving the app a chance.
News Book - Independent
Android Apps Review Details: News Book - Independent Android app is free. This app requires Android 2.0 and up. You may download News Book - Independent from the Android Market
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