Considering the praise heaped upon SkyGrid in its App Store description, I was expecting a lot from the universal app for iDevices. Perhaps those raves were warranted before SkyGrid’s latest update, but all I can say about SkyGrid is that I hated this app.
I was initially drawn to SkyGrid on my iPad because of its nine-square photo grid that displays featured stories at a glance. The app claims to update in real time, but after spending a few days with it, I seemed to only see new material once per day. Slow news week?
I tapped the various squares, expecting to be taken to the news story. Instead a drop-down menu of various stories on that particular topic appears, if you’re using portrait mode. In landscape mode, the source options appear in a sidebar. I then tapped one of the sources, expecting to be taken to the news story. Wrong again. On this tap, SkyGrid offers the intro of the article and a photo, requiring you to tap the “View Full Article” button at the bottom of the screen. That is a lot of needless tapping.
You can follow favorite categories, keywords and sources, but I didn’t like having to do all of my navigation in a drop-down/sidebar menu when the full screen is going to waste. I did appreciate that SkyGrid offers a browser — just type in your web address in the search bar — but since the app doesn’t remember your place, if you exit to check email, using SkyGrid feels like a burden.
There are plenty of news aggregators, many of which are far better than SkyGrid. Save your space, and go for one of those instead.
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