Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Local New Orleans news apps for the iPhone
Posted by Kevin Allman on Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 5:27 AM
A recent poll from the Pew Research Center found 33% of smartphone owners now read news on their cellphones -- a number that's bound to rise as more people adopt smartphones and more news orgs develop specialized apps to meet the need.
Leading the media market in New Orleans, smartphone app-wise, are WWL-TV and Fox 8 News, which are now offering free, ad-supported iPhone applications featuring current news content.
Which one is better? It depends. WWL's is easier to navigate and seems more intuitive; Fox 8's is a bit more stylish and customizable, and the font size and layout of the stories are definitely easier on the eyes. What may break the tie is WWL's video offerings -- you can watch selected stories or a weather forecast on the go over a basic Internet connection; Fox 8's app doesn't have that function.
The good news is: both apps are pretty good for keeping up with New Orleans news, and they're both free from the iTunes Music Store. Why not try them both? Here's a couple of screenshots for comparison, with more below the jump:
Comments (2)
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The problem is having to launch a new app just to read the same headlines from a different source. Why not one app that pulls them all into one place like a feed reader? It's still a better idea to just follow all of these sources on Twitter.
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Jeffrey, I use an app called News Fuse which aggregates most major US newspapers and network/cable news websites all under one button. It saves phone space to have the NY Times, the Wash Post, CNN, Fox, MSNBC and a bunch of others all bundled together. I think the app was 99c. You're right; it would be great to have something like that for local news as well.
