Another app has joined the ever-growing iPad RSS newsfeed marketplace. Apollo News was released recently by Hawthorne Labs Inc. The app pulls articles into one of seven pre-selected categories. These are: Top News, Business, Sports, Entertainment, Life Style, Funny and News Videos. These news sources are automatically configured within the app.
Six articles from one of the seven categories are placed nicely on the top two-thirds of the app's main screen. The categories are shown on the bottom third of the screen, along with the title of the first category article and picture. This layout works in both landscape and portrait mode.
A click on an article's "Quick View" previews it in a box; a click on the article itself sends the reader directly to the article's website. The user however, never leaves the app; everything remains in the app itself, including the linked website.
As with YouTube's popular thumbs up and thumbs down feature, readers of Apollo News can rate each article. As articles are rated, the app pulls new content based on those preferences. For example, if you aren't interested in soccer and rate stories about the game poorly, eventually those stories will be eliminated from the app. The app allows unlimited blog feeds and calls itself the "Newspaper of the Future."
Apollo News allows users to add feeds from additional sources, as do other newsfeed apps. I didn't find this feature easy to use, nor was it heavily advertised (probably by design). The app's creators claim
thousands of feeds are already included, so adding from other content sources isn't necessary, but is possible.
So many iPad (and iPhone) RSS newsfeed apps rely heavily on Google's own Reader feature. Apollo News does not, which is refreshing. I have found a great deal of new content using this app and, very quickly, it has become the first app I look at each morning.
The app is available now in the App Store for $2.99.
