Newsbits, the debut iPhone application from developer mjclabs, is brand new, having just launched on the App Store.

Simply, the lightweight app is a simple news aggregator. Seller Chilongo Mulanda explains that it’s ideal for those who “value reading news from several sources, whether to corroborate, compare or to gain different perspectives.”

Features include nicely-formatted picture galleries, a “save article” function, link-sharing (via email, Facebook, and Twitter), and personalized view modes with adjustable font sizes. The purported split-screen capability is nowhere to be found, however, and the news sources are — for the time being, anyway — quite scant.

The galleries are nice. Here, eat this ball.

Not much available for news sources, just like Halladay's run support.

Still, the app is well-crafted and fun to navigate. Swipes work intuitively, cycling through categories, while the visuals of the texts themselves are pretty elegant. Overall, it’s a really solid first effort.

Educate yourself: Swiping through tabs is fun.

The app isn’t Retina-ready, yet, but you can’t go wrong with free.

Check our Newsbits in iTunes now!