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Material: Personalised news, blogs & RSS stories (Free) by Inq Mobile Limited is a smart magazine app that aims to replace your RSS reader. Since smart and social magazine apps have become a thing, many of them have proven to be great options, with Flipboard, Zite, and LinkedIn Pulse being among the top contenders.
While Material is similar to these apps and others in many ways, it also works very differently. Rather than going off of any type of user input, Material aims to know you as well as you know yourself.
By simply signing in with your Twitter or Facebook account, Material will begin to compile a set of interests based on the users you follow. This will take some time, meaning that content will not be available instantly on the first launch.
Material is like a real magazine because it provides new content through “editions.” Two issues will be pushed to your phone every day, each with what the app's algorithm believes is the most important and valuable to you.
When comparing the articles provided by my Feedly and Flipboard accounts with Material's, I can confidently say that this works well. The app instantly knew that my interests involved tech and music, and all of the highlights of the day were shown.
If you have any interests that the app was not able to sniff out, they can be added manually, which will cause them to appear in the next issue. To access and manage your list of interests, just tap on the “hamburger” button located in the top left corner.
Reading articles in Material is a breeze. To switch between interests, swipe from left to right in the article grid. After tapping on and reading an article, just swipe up to go to the next one, or go back and choose a different article. Regardless of how you prefer to read, Material will always keep your editions short to ensure that only the most relevant content gets your attention.
Although the idea of only having access to two seemingly limited editions per day may be disappointing, Material does the trick of providing the best content. As someone who does not have time to scroll through hundreds of unread RSS articles every day, it is kind of relieving.
If Material is the way you would like to go for news on your iPhone, pick it up in the App Store for free.
