News

64 'News' stories April 2013 - March 2015

CNN app gets a Notification Center widget, sports section on iOS

Mark Gurman Mar 5 2015 - 3:29 pm PT

CNN today pushed out an update to its iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch application with a pair of features that some users will find significant: a Today widget for iOS 8’s Notification Center and a sports section. The widget is populated with the latest top stories from CNN, while the sports section sources its content from Bleacher Report, which has a dedicated App Store app (iPhone, iPad). CNN also says this version includes various bug fixes, like every app update that has come before it.

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Microsoft continues its iOS app acquisition spree with Prismatic, a news reader startup that Apple eyed

Zac Hall Mar 2 2015 - 9:14 am PT

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Since Satya Nadella took the reins from Steve Ballmer just over a year ago, Microsoft has been on an aggressive acquisition spree of cross platform apps and services. Most recently, the company bought the iOS email app Acompli then relaunched it as Outlook for iOS. Microsoft also bought Sunrise, the popular calendar software with an iOS app.

Aside from Microsoft and Apple, other interested buyers include or included Facebook, Google, and Yahoo (anyone missing?). Competing with Apple’s TestFlight acquisition last year, Microsoft even bought the beta distribution service Hockeyapp at the end of last year.

Adding to its list of recent mobile app acquisitions, TechCrunch reports that Microsoft is now eyeing Prismatic, a social recommendation network with apps for both iOS and Android. Prismatic describes itself as a personalized and social news reader.
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Google rolling out ‘News & Weather’ app for iOS

Zac Hall Oct 7 2014 - 12:12 pm PT

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Google has a new app for iPhone and iPad users called ‘Google News & Weather‘ that presents local news and weather as well as headlines from a variety of categories and sources in one app. Categories for headlines can be added or removed from within the app for customizing the news you want to follow. Previously, Google News & Weather was only available for Android users.

The app joins a huge list of existing Google apps including Gmail, which was just updated for the new iPhone 6 display sizes yesterday, and Google News & Weather is already optimized for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Full description below:
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Google’s Currents iOS app redesigned & renamed ‘Google Play Newsstand’

Jordan Kahn Sep 23 2014 - 12:09 pm PT

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Following the renaming of its Google Currents news reader app to “Google Play Newsstand” on Android back in February, Google has now given a similar treatment to the iOS app. The app, like the Android version earlier this year, also receives a makeover in the process with a streamlined design and new features:

What’s new
• New navigation helping you easily access the articles and editions you love including:
– Read Now – Easily access articles you subscribe to and discover new articles and editions all in one place
– Topics – Subscribe and get news from topics you are most interested in
– My Library – All of your subscriptions will be found here
• A brand new design giving you a streamlined news reading experience

The Google Play Newsstand app is available for free for iPhone and iPad on the App Store now.

CNN’s iPhone 6 app demoed during the Apple event is now available

Zac Hall Sep 18 2014 - 7:59 am PT

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: Before updating

: After updating (with new landscape view)

Apple showed off a number of its own apps at last week’s iPhone 6 event to illustrate how the larger display phones can show content in new ways, specifically using the iPad-like two-column view in landscape mode.

Apple also encouraged developers to update their own apps to take advantage of the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays rather than relying on system scaling to blow up content made for 4-inch displays, and CNN’s news app for iPhone was the shining example of what third-party app makers can do.
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Reeder for iOS updated with background app refresh, improved navigation & multiple bug fixes

Ben Lovejoy May 27 2014 - 6:15 am PT

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The popular newsreader app Reeder has been updated to version 2.2 with a fairly lengthy list of new features and bug fixes.

Notably, navigation has been improved, with the ability to pan left and right to toolbars and empty spaces in list views, as well as adding a drag handle to the toolbar to make it more obvious that you can slide left/right to go forward and back. A loading progress indicator has also been added to the in-app browser.

Smart streams now support grouping by either feed or date, and the app can also now handle feed links from other apps.

Bug fixes include handling of multiple Feedly accounts, the disappearing status bar with the white theme on the iPad and missing scrollbars in the browser and when using dark themes.

Reeder costs $4.99 from the App Store. The latest beta of the Mac version is still available for free from the Reeder site.

The full change list for Reeder 2.2 can be found below:
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Review: Fresco for iOS condenses the headlines to photos, stories to quick descriptions

Sarah Guarino May 20 2014 - 8:06 am PT

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Fresco News is a news reader app that delivers news in a whole new way by displaying informative, captivating, emotional photographs. It features content from political, sports, business, technology and entertainment news providers such as Aljazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, Boston Globe, CNN, The Guardian, Huffington Post, maskable.com, NY Post, NY Times, Reuters, Time Magazine and VICE News. Users get to scroll and flick through the images that convey the news.

Fresco presents the news in the form of a photo feed that illustrates each headline visually. Tapping a photo offers a brief description of the photo and the associated story. Tapping on it again allows you to view it in a fullscreen parallax-enabled view. You can also read the full accompanying article from a variety of news sources.

Compared to “traditional” news apps, Fresco is a helpful app that provides a practical, enjoyable news experience. For anyone who wants to stay informed of current events, the app provides a significantly less cumbersome method for getting the latest news.

Currently the photos in the feed come from professional journalism photographers, such as AP, Getty, or Reuters. In the app’s next update, the images will be a mix of professional and crowdsourced. The photo does have to be approved by the developers in order to show up in the app, but users will have the opportunity to be paid for their photos.

According to John Meyer, founder and CEO of Fresco News, when a newsworthy event takes place close to a Fresco user, they will receive a push notification informing them that they can be paid for photos of that event. The process of submitting a photo takes less than thirty seconds. Meyer is also working with news organizations to license their photos.

The next update will also contain more options for navigating within the app, allowing users to choose which feed to follow based on topic, interests, location or user.

As an avid news consumer, I will definitely be taking advantage of this free app, and highly recommend it to other like-minded news junkies looking to get the latest headlines. You can get Fresco News from the App Store for free.

Yahoo Mail iPhone app adds weather, web search, news, scores & more (for better or worse)

Jordan Kahn Apr 29 2014 - 9:19 am PT

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Yahoo released an interesting update to its Yahoo Mail app for iPhone today. In version 3.0, Yahoo is integrating many of its other services including weather, sports scores, stocks, images, news, and web search directly into the mail app. The goal is to provide users one easy place to access all their content from Yahoo, but it’s unclear what that means for the future of Yahoo’s other iOS apps for each of the services. The feature is currently only available to iPhone users running iOS 7 and up.

When you’re finished reading and replying to your email, see what’s happening in the world by tapping on the News icon. From celebrity gossip to the latest political news, you’ll find it in your personalized, visually rich news stream.

Let’s head over to the Today icon. Here’s where you’ll find a snapshot of the information you care about most every day and search — from your local weather to a news digest to the latest stock quotes and sports scores you care about.

The updated app provides new three new tabs along the bottom— Mail, News, and Today— with Mail bringing you to your inbox, News providing a stream of all stories from Yahoo, and Today providing an overview of weather, trending content, scores, and access to web search. While I have a feeling that some might not be too happy about their Mail app being bombarded with all this new content, Yahoo has done a pretty good job of keeping it out of the way if you only ever want to see your inbox.

Yahoo Mail version 3.0 is available on the App Store now.

What’s New in Version 3.0

– Feature updates for iPhone iOS7+. Your Yahoo Mail app is now enhanced with news, search, and snapshots of the weather, sports scores, stocks, and News Digest. Access the info you need, all in one app.
– Performance improvements
– Bug fixes

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSjEMBLANjw]

Review: Prismatic news reader revamped with increased focus on personal interests

Sarah Guarino Dec 19 2013 - 9:00 am PT

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Prismatic is a news-reading app that creates a tailored feed based on each user’s personal interests. The app can analyze and crawl the user’s social data from sites like Twitter and Facebook, then analyze it for common threads that could point to specific interests. Once Prismatic is done analyzing the aggregated data, it recommends following topics it believes the user will find interesting.

Once the user has selected a few topics, Prismatic regularly tracks down content from all over the web that fit into these topics and presents them for easy reading. There are over 10,000 interests to follow, and Prismatic looks at over 5 million new stories each day.

The articles are presented on a news feed that combines all of a user’s interests on one page. Every article displays one or two lines of text, a photo (if the article includes one), and shows how many people have liked it, disliked it, or shared it. By liking or disliking a story in the news feed, users can help Prismatic’s algorithm continue to learn more about what types of content they want to see.

The Explore section lets users suggested interests and search for specific users or publications. If you find articles that you want to share, Prismatic allows you to publish links to them through Twitter, Facebook, or email.

If you’re searching for a smarter way to discover and read news on your favorite subjects, you should consider giving Prismatic a try. You can get it for free from the App Store.

ESPN launches new SportsCenter app for real-time, personalized news & scores

Jordan Kahn Nov 21 2013 - 8:49 am PT

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ESPN is launching a new app today called ESPN SportsCenter, which actually replaces the old ScoreCenter app with a redesign and all new features. The app does much of what the old app did, offering real-time updates on scores for the biggest sporting events of the day, as well as breaking news, analysis, notifications, and more. You’ll also be able to add your favorite teams to customize your experience and the new app introduces a new Favorites feature for quickly accessing news and scores for the teams you want to keep up with most often.

The new ESPN SportsCenter app also includes a new Clubhouses feature that includes all content for every team and league, an Inbox for getting personalized content such as news and alerts, and enhanced game pages that feature “New native sharing and one-click GameCast access.” Also new in the app is ESPN Now, a feature that lets users get real-time scores and updates from social networks.

In addition, the new SportsCenter app has been given a number of enhancements to search and overall performance.

The free ESPN SportsCenter app is available for iPhone now.

What’s New in Version 4.0.0

– ScoreCenter is now SportsCenter
– Speed: Faster than Calvin Johnson going deep
– Favorites: Your team news and scores in an instant
– Clubhouses: Content central for every team and league under the sun
– ESPN Now: Your one-stop-shop for real-time scores and social updates
– Inbox: A dedicated home for personalized content from news to alerts to scores
– Enhanced Game Pages: New native sharing and one-click GameCast access
– Search: Easily navigate to teams, leagues, and sports to view content or add to favorites

AOL launches iPad app with news, weather, video, and mail

Mike Beasley Jun 27 2013 - 10:17 am PT

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AOL launched a new iPad app today that allows users to quickly access their AOL email accounts, as well as the latest news and weather updates from the online service. The app is designed exclusively for Apple’s tablet and doesn’t currently have an iPhone counterpart.

The application is available for free on the iOS App Store.

Features:
• Discover the latest stories and videos in an engaging news stream format
• Connect and share via AOL Mail, Facebook and Twitter
• Choose the news categories that matter most to you by customizing your stream
• Save articles and videos to read, watch and share at your leisure
• Delight in the featured news stream as it reflects your personal news interests over time

Apple’s iTunes Radio label royalities revealed, plans to add talk radio for sports, weather

Jordan Kahn Jun 27 2013 - 6:12 am PT

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Leading up to the unveiling of Apple’s new iTunes Radio service earlier this month at WWDC, we reported on some small details regarding deals Apple had reached with the major labels necessary to get bring its Pandora competitor to market. Earlier reports claimed that Apple was paying Warner around 10% of ad revenue— that’s around twice as much as Pandora reportedly pays. Today, The Wall Street Journal provides us with some in-depth info on what Apple is paying labels and publishers after taking a look at the terms of the deal.

Apple will in fact be paying well over the 0.12 cents per listen Pandora offers the labels, as well as a percentage of ad revenue, and the payout will also increase during the service’s second year:

During iTunes Radio’s first year, Apple will pay a label 0.13 cents each time a song is played, as well as 15% of net advertising revenue, proportionate to a given label’s share of the music played on iTunes. In the second year, that bumps up to 0.14 cents per listen, plus 19% of ad revenue.

However, there are some exceptions. The report notes that Apple won’t have to pay royalties for songs that users already have in their iTunes library. That will apparently extend to “songs that might be on an album that a listener owns just part of.” Interestingly, Apple also won’t pay for songs skipped before the 20 second mark and those included in special promotions, but it can only skip paying royalties on two songs per hour for each iTunes Radio user:
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Following acquisition, Pulse iOS news app updated with sharing to LinkedIn

Mark Gurman May 8 2013 - 2:06 pm PT

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The free Pulse news-reading app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch has been updated with support for sharing articles to social network LinkedIn. Of course, this update should come as little surprise as Linkedin acquired Pulse last month for $90 million. Additionally, the new update includes sharing to the Evernote service.

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Yahoo! for iOS adds Summly integration

Zac Hall Apr 22 2013 - 8:08 am PT

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Yahoo continues to rebrand itself under the leadership of former Google executive Marissa Mayer, proving it can be just as innovative as its competitors.

Following the launch of Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! Mail for iPad last week, the Internet giant updated its Yahoo! for iOS app today to include news summaries in its articles provided by Summly as well as a redesigned page for articles.

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Vu news app for iPhone has unique interface, recommends content

Mark Gurman Apr 18 2013 - 2:52 pm PT

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We’ve been testing a new, free iPhone news app called Vu that presents content based on what you have previously read/viewed within the app via an easy to use, fast interface. The app recently gained article saving and improved article sharing features, and we think it is worth taking a look at. Like other news apps, you can sync content between your iPhone, iPad, and your computer. You can access content you have saved for later via a web browser on non-iPhone devices.