HBR Stats, which offer management ideas and facts and figures, respectively, HBR Today provides iPhone-friendly content drawn from its Web site, HBR.org.
HBR Today’s primary content, both print and video, is drawn from HBR’s blog network. The iPhone app also offers in-line access to the Harvard Business IdeaCast, a weekly audio podcast focused on management. HBR Today’s design is user-friendly, and incorporates UI features such as pull-to-refresh. Links open in-line and can be opened in Safari, and the iPhone app incorporates sharing via Twitter, Facebook and email. I couldn’t, however, find a way to share audio or video posts.
I was able to find all of the stories featured in HBR Today on the Harvard Business Review Web site, but there was quite a bit of Web site content that didn’t appear in-app. The lack of search function didn’t help matters, either. I do like that HBR Today doesn’t currently have outside ads, but the relatively large HBR feedback banner did hog screen real estate.
Although HBR Today will likely be useful to readers who reference the Web site often, with all of its content available for free on the Internet, I’m not sure that the iPhone app is worth its purchase price.
