May 4, 2013
Reuters shows how it's done
Reuters has to be one of the best designed news apps ever. It’s easy to navigate and looks good doing it. The articles appeal to a business audience, but general readers will find them just as engaging.
After being overwhelmed by the eye candy in the new aggregator app, Vū, delving into Reuters is a welcome relief. That’s not to say there aren’t some polished animations — there are — but they are not a distraction from the main thing you want from a news app — the news itself.
The news comes in categories known as streams. Once you’ve chosen a story, you can flip up or down to the next one. In addition to Home, there are eight other streams. You can also search for any topic you like, with suggestions appearing as you type.
It would be nice if you could go deeper into the rivulets that feed the streams, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to do this. For example, after performing a search on “Apple products” I noticed that the results were in a Gadgets stream. I would like to see an update to Reuters that would allow you to save Gadgets as a stream along with the main ones.
In addition to the streams, there are a couple of useful tools. Stories can be saved so you can read them later. And you can create a watchlist that shows the latest stock prices for companies of your choice.
Reuters has set a high standard with this app. Creators of other news apps should take note.