The advent of smart technology has made it easier for news addicts to get their daily dose of breaking stories, sports roundups and page 3 gossip at the tap of a button. Most News apps have one thing in common. They are redesigned for the mobile device. So when you reach for your local newspaper on the newsstand and compare it with wants on your smartphone, you’ll find that it has a different layout with local advertisements and classifieds generally missing. PressReader is a smart app that lets you read your favorite newspaper in its traditional format, with ads, comics all the the jazz that comes in your daily printed edition, from your smartphone or tablet. And since PressReader offers a free 24 hour trial of their services, I decided to check out my favorite papers from around the world and let you in on how PressReader works.
PressReader: A Newspaper App for Traditional Reading
I love news apps, but I’m often annoyed when I don’t find important pieces of information that would otherwise be available on the local paper. That’s why I love PressReader. And that’s not all. PressReader app offers over 2300 newspaper editions from over 97 countries and in over 55 languages to choose from. And although I’m not going to be reading all of them, I know that I can pick any paper I want from PressReaders’ huge library any time I want to.
PressReader App Review
The Interface
When you open up the PressReader app for the first time, you are taken to the home screen that loads up all the newspapers in your locality. At the top of the screen is a list of all newspapers available by name, and options to view them in alphabetical order or in the default view. The Settings button displays options to setup and manage your accounts, customize your library, and set options on how you wish to view your articles.
(At the time of writing this article, PressReader also had a special promotional offer to join their membership program. )
Unbelievable Options
You can search for your newspaper or magazine by country, language, using the Search box, or, if you’ve favorited an edition, then by favorites. You can also track recent papers you’ve read. Or if you wish to check out previous editions of a newspaper, you can select dates from a handy calendar app or if you prefer simply set all future issues for automatic download. Once downloaded, you can read your favorite stories in offline view, even without an internet connection. And when you’re done, long press the edition to delete.
Reading PressReader Newspapers Digitally
Once you select a newspaper you are taken to a screen that displays the entire newspaper in a single view. You can read your stories in both portrait and landscape view. Scrolling through the pages of the newspaper is a breeze. Just a flick of your fingers left or right should have you scrolling through the pages with ease. There’s also a scroll bar at the bottom of the page that lists the title of the pages.
You can tap the scroll bar to display a thumbnail view of the pages and then scroll right over to the section that you want to read. For example, I know that my local newspaper carries it’s sports stories on the second last page, So instead of flicking the paper 8 times, I just tap the scroll button and scroll over once or twice to select page 9. Actually, you can also do this from the button displayed at the top of the screen. That option opens up a screen with 2 tabs, one showing the thumbnail of pages and the other just the titles.
Basically, navigating the long newspaper on PressReader was pretty cool.
To read an article on this newspaper app, just tap on a story headline. You will be taken to another page containing the story. You can move to the next story again by just a flick of the fingers. You can also use the buttons at the bottom of the screen to increase or decrease the font size and read at your own comfort.
For readers who don’t have the time to flip through the screen and read a story, or for the physically challenged, there’s an audio section lets you listen to your favorite stories as they are read online.
PressReader is one step better than the traditional newspaper. For instance, if there’s a story that continued on another page, you can just click the page number to navigate directly to that page. Similarly phone numbers are also active links, so just a click will let you call the number or add it to your address book.
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PressReader takes advantage of almost every smart feature of your mobile device. Double tapping will let you zoom in and pinching in and out of the screen will expand and reduce the size of text on the screen. Touch and hold a story to get advanced features such as audio options, text view, sharing, printing, and voting.
Now that I’ve enunciated all the good features of PressReader app, it’s time for the not so good part. The Price. Casual readers who occasionally need to pick up a newspaper can do so at $0.99 per download. Since I live in India, I’d buy a local newspaper for Rs. 4 but I’d be paying almost Rs. 55 to download a PressReader edition. It will still be a difficult proposition for me to pick up a the Daily Mail, the online edition which I read many times a day, because I get my news fix for free, but I’d be paying a hefty price to read it on PressReader. If you love reading tons of papers, and don’t mind paying, then you could even go for the monthly subscription of $29.95.
PressReader will do well to rethink their pricing policy. How about a value pack where users could subscribe to a specific number of newspapers for an optimal price. Or subscribe to two papers and get a third one for free. I’m sure there are many options that can be brainstormed.
I’m also pretty sure not many readers would read or refer to more than 10 newspapers or magazines a day. And who would want to pay for something they can get for free.
That aside, I also noticed that some stories were cut off on the main page, but were displayed in full in the Text view, a small defect that can hopefully be remedied. Another point is that the PressReader app features over 2300 newspapers, but not all! So you may just find that one paper you’re looking missing from their catalog.
Apart from these issues, I loved this newspaper consolidating app. With a fantastic collection of papers from all over the world, a beautiful interface to access the stories, advanced options to read the articles the way you want, and a unique option to subscribe to traditional newspapers PressReader is an awesome newspaper app, in fact, in my opinion, one of the best newspaper consolidation apps to offer ever grace the App Market.
If you travel often and miss reading your home edition, PressReader is a great newspaper app to pick up. Or if you’re looking to pick up a winner in the Kentucky Derby and need to know what the experts in America are tipping, you could subscribe to PressReader.
I was so very impressed with PressReader that I ended up writing the longest review post I have ever covered on my blog, and that, too for a mobile app! I’m also subscribing to their services, as soon as I get confirmation that they will be including one newspaper that’s not on their list! Can you imagine!
If you are already a subscriber, let us know what you love or not, about PressReader.
And hey, in a nutshell, here’s what PressReader can do for you.
PressReader app is available for Android, iPad, iPhone, Mac & Windows PCs, and on the BlackBerry.
Check out their trial version before you decide on a subscription plan.
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