New In The App Store: Newsdesk

Like iNewz, the new app Newsdesk provides quick access to headlines from a selection of major news outlets without the need to first subscribe to individual RSS fees. As they describe it–

While ordinary RSS readers give you hundreds of links to wade through, Newsdesk cuts it down to just the single story on top of each site’s frontpage at any given moment. Since it only takes a few seconds to see what the major stories are, you can make sure you stay updated throughout the day – no matter how busy you are.

When you first start the app you are given a choice of three news-areas- World News, Science and Technology News and Entertainment News. You are also offered the option of whether or not you want to receive news from Norwegian news outlets.

I chose world news without the Norwegian sites and within seconds was offered headline news from the BBC, the New York Times AlJazeera, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and more.

By tapping on any story I was able to access the entire article without having to open Safari. Moreover, once on the news organization’s site I was able to access other stories, as well.

One nice feature is that, once loaded, the news summaries are cached on the device itself for offline access. I should note however that ONLY the summary is cached.

If you want to get access to nine current stories from nine different news outlets, NewsDesk is a good option. Personally, however, I’ll stick with my full RSS reader. It takes longer to sync my articles but it offers so much more in the way of news and offline access.

NewsDesk can be found HERE in the App Store.