The free News360 iPhone app advertises itself as a far-reaching news aggregator. I suppose it is, but its sources and interface design fall short of other similar apps.
At the top of the app is a long, horizontally scrolling list of news categories, including “World News,” “Entertainment,” “Business,” etc. You select one of the categories, and you are given about 10 headlines, which are viewable by swiping left on your screen.
But here is where it gets a little awkward. If you want to read a story, you tap on the headline, and it takes you to another screen with a picture and just a paragraph or two of text. Below the nutgraf are about three dozen other headlines, which gives it a jumbled, distracted feeling.
If you want to read more than that, you have to tap on “read full article,” and then you are transported to the original source of the story, typically a newspaper’s website.
Further, the developer of the app is a tech company based in Moscow, and yet all of the sources for the content of the app seem to be American — or at the very least, from the West. They include the Huffington Post, Fox, The Wall Street Journal, and so on. I would like to see some alternative sources, especially given that this app originated from somewhere outside of the United States.
