Applications to feed your reading habits

SMARTPHONES and tablets are great sources of finding news and keeping updates on your favourite interest.

Be it interior design, architecture, politics, or even technology, one of the best ways to get updates is via these technological advanced gadgets.

There are different applications that pull a variety of news sources into your tablet or phone, where you can then read on your own time.

Below, in no particular order, are some of the better applications made simply for that purpose.

Pulse

If you read a lot, there's no reason why you haven't downloaded Pulse yet. It's fast, light-weight and gets the job done in a somewhat attractive layout. Pulse allows you to customise your sources, or you can choose from a number of pre-defined sources that the application has set out for you to select.

For example, my Pulse feed consists of a number of different news updates from basketball to politics, technology or life stories.

Basically, you get what you want from Pulse. If you want NBA.com updates, you're going to get just that.

If you just want to explore, you'll be able to choose from a set criteria and there are a lot of good feeds to read from.

If you choose Pulse's technology feed, then you'll get a wide variety of tech blogs updated on a timely basis.

Pulse will arrange the app horizontally, from current to old, where you can then scroll through.

The feeds are brief updates of an actual article, which the application will automatically cache for you when connected to a Wi-Fi network (you can switch off the updates in 3G).

If you'd like to read more, you simply click on the source to get to the original article and it gives you the full-blown news within the application or in your browser if you would like.

Pulse also allows for easy sharing and has all the social networking integration you need.

One of the most attractive feature for Pulse now is its desktop version which can be found at www.pulse.me.

The desktop version is very Windows 8-esque, using the tiles format to display news feed. Much like the mobile version, when you click on the tile which has the article's heading in a tiled format (think Windows 8 tiles), a smaller screen pops-up with the main points of the article. Want to read more? Then you click on the link to get re-directed.

Flipboard

Initially an iOS only application, Flipboard was made available to Android when the Galaxy S3 was launched. The application was then strictly for the Samsung handset, but of course, Android being an open-sourced operating system, practically the next day everyone had a copy of Flipboard. The best thing about it is, Flipboard looks even better on Android than it does iOS, especially when you view it on so many different screen sizes, from the 4.3-inch HTC Sensation, to the 4.65-inch Galaxy Nexus, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and beyond.

They all look different from one another, but actually Flipboard is optimised for a smaller screen size.

Anyway, back to the app, Flipboard for me is when I'm done reading the content that I want.

So as mentioned above, with Pulse you know exactly what you're getting. If I want to know what happened in the NBA today, I will go to Pulse and check my feed.

With Flipboard it's a bit different. You are finding new sources coming in to your feed constantly. It works the same way as Pulse in the sense that you first identify what your interest is. For example, I love browsing architecture and interior design on Flipboard because everyday, it just pulls the latest news from hundreds of different blogs and sites into its "Design" feed. So I just click on that and I start browsing the daily happenings in that area. The best thing about Flipboard is the way it is laid out and how it looks. One update usually takes up the entire screen with a nice picture, heading and some words. If you're interested, you click it and it goes in detail. Same caching technology as Pulse, you can switch it to Wi-Fi only to update itself.

And as the name suggests, when you're done reading, you go back to where you started and start flipping across the "board".

Google Currents

Since Android started, Google has come a long way with its applications. The re-skinned Gmail application is amazing, the Map is constantly improving, translate can recognise voices now, Google Goggles can read images and of course, now Google has its very own "good-looking" reader.

Currents is much like Flipboard, and though I don't use it as often as the other two above, it's still a very good application. The arrangement and layout is more Flipboard than it is Pulse and you also get a list of pre-set themes and topics to choose from.

But because Currents is newer than the other two applications, my question to Google is, what's different and why should I use it?

It can't just be another nice-looking reader, there has to be something that it can do that others can't that will make users want to jump ship.

If you're new to the smartphone arena, definitely try Currents out along with the others, after all, it comes down to your preference.

Google Reader

Google Reader has been around for a long long time. I've been using the desktop version for years to collect my RSS (RDF Site Summary) feeds. It's actually one of the most important apps for me and the best thing about Google Reader is, you can either get what you really want by entering which website or blogs you want your RSS feed from, or you can have GReader suggest what you might be interested in. The Reader will then send you new links from new sources. I see it as a combo of Pulse and Flipboard but in the most basic layout, just text.

News 360 And Zite

News 360 is an iPad only application that uses "Story Cubes". There are different categories at the bottom of your screen and are presented in these cubes. Users can then flick a cube up or down to see the headline with a picture, an excerpt of the story, sources or sharing options. If you flick the cube left or right, you'll get to explore more stories on the same topic.

Zite is also an iPad-only application, voted by Apple as the number one news application of 2011.

There are different sections arranged very similar to the style of a magazine.

The views expressed by the author are his own and do not reflect those of The Brunei Times.

The Brunei Times