Read On – minimal yet simple news reader app
by Toni McQuilken
Aug 13, 2012 12:00 PM –
Install
Read On is a news reader app that allows you to consume your favorite news topics from around the world, plus it’s super easy to use!
Price: Free
Tested on: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Content Rating: Low Maturity
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- A very simple news reader!
- Easy to add new feeds or Web sites!
Cons
- A weird refresh bug that has it returning to the Top News feed all the time.
- No pictures at all.
Features:
Read On is a very simple news reader app. You start off with a Top News feed as the default, but adding general categories or sites is as easy as typing in a word or phrase, or putting in a Web site.
One unique thing about this one is that it is mostly just text. On most of the articles I read, there were no images at all, even when it was obvious there should be. Which is both good and bad – if you’re looking for a reader that will let you just quickly read articles without having to load or get around a lot of images, then this is a good option. However, so many articles on the Internet today have images that are in one way or another part of the article itself. Either the article refers to it specifically, or at times the article is actually about the image. For example, one article I read via Read On was about the Mars rover Curiosity and the first images it sent back. Since there were no images, I had to take the author’s word that they were awesome. But this isn’t always the case, and for a lot of types of articles, the images wouldn’t be necessary, so it’s a toss up. I will say there were a few articles I did get an image, but it always seemed to be the one article I really didn’t need an image on, since it was just an illustration, and not an actual part of what I was reading, which was weird.
I did really like that every article I pulled up was the full article. In some readers, you get a lot of partial articles, and then you have to click through to the original site to read the whole thing. I like that the whole article is there in the app for me to read.
Probably the only real solid down side of the whole app was a weird refresh bug I had pop up quite a few times. When the app went to refresh the stories, instead of staying on the feed I was reading, it automatically took me back to Top Stories, forcing me to manually re-select the feed I wanted, then scroll back down to the story I left off at. If it just happened once or twice, it wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but it was happening on a pretty regular basis, so it’s something I hope the developers fix in a future release.
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Read On Story
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Read On Feed
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Read On Top Stories
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Read On Article
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Read On Search News Topics
Usefulness:
This is a nice, simple news reader. It doesn’t have anything fancy, just quick articles, for quick reading.
Ease of Use:
The refresh bug I encountered made it a bit more difficult to use since I had to keep jumping back to where I had been, but other than that, the app is very simple to use. You just type in a topic keyword, phrase or Web site and it adds it to your list of feeds. Tap on a headline and you have the full story to read.
Frequently Used:
Like any news reader, it’s likely to be something you’ll be in and out of throughout the day, checking for new stories.
Interface:
The interface is very simple and clean. It doesn’t try to be beautiful, but is minimalist beautiful, since the focus is on giving you articles formatted simply to read.