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It’s time for another installment of Palm Discovery’s wReview Wednesday!

PressReader for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

In this day and age of internet connectivity where you can go online for practically everything including take out, the only thing missing is your morning paper. But wait! That’s also available via the internet too! Now, rather than waiting in the morning for that typical thud at the door, you can now get your daily newspaper directly through the internet. No more getting those wet, soggy papers because your carrier didn’t bother to put them in a plastic bag or waiting around because he was late for delivery. You can now get the exact same newspaper online, except it’s there when you want it and the layout is exactly the same as the actual newspaper with all the ads, crosswords and others. And you can access that either on your computer (PC or Mac), or on your mobile device like iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android smartphone, Android tablet, Blackberry, and even eReader devices like the Kindle, Nook, iRex, Sony Reader and others. Think of this as having the Audible or Zinio service except it’s for printed newspapers. All this is offered in a free app called PressReader, which I will be reviewing today.

A quick thanks to Ray Wang for mentioning this to me a few weeks ago.

PressReader is a newspaper viewing app offered for PC and Mac computers as well as for mobile devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and others. It is an extension of the world’s largest online newspaper kiosk called PressDisplay.com from NewspaperDirect offering over 1700 newspapers and magazines from around the globe. You can select individual issues or subscribe to a plan which allows unlimited viewing of your favorite papers. And the best part of it is that you can view and read your newspapers immediately, even before they officially hit the stands. And of course, they will stay crisp, intact and new, every time you view it, no matter how many times you read it. Once an issue is purchased or if you have a subscription with PressDisplay you can view your newspapers on your mobile device using the PressReader app. And as mentioned, I will be reviewing the PressReader app for the iPhone and iPod Touch today.

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For those who want to skip over all the detailed review and just want a summary, you can jump to the review summary

Imagine being able to view your favorite newspapers from all over the world before it even hit the stands. You can read the South China Morning Post in Chinese, or Angora in Polish, or Kiyevskiy Telegraph in Ukrainian, and many others. You are no longer restricted to reading papers available only locally but others from all over the world. Think about the possibilities. You can stay informed about news from your homeland or elsewhere. Plus, not only are you viewing the entire newspaper, you are viewing it in its exact layout as the printed version. That means you get to read all those wonderful printed ads, comics, want ads, etc just as if you were reading the actual printed newspaper itself, except it’s all virtual. And being virtual, it means the paper will always stay neat and tidy, no matter how many times you read it. Plus, that also means you’re doing your part in helping the environment as fewer trees are cut.

PressReader is quite simply, a newspaper viewing app for mobile devices such as iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, as well as for your PC or Mac computer. Read your favorite newspaper on your device while online or download it and view it offline. You can also view your favorite newspaper online via PressDisplay.com. Your account and subscriptions on PressDisplay will be available on PressReader so you can view your newspaper at home with the computer and during your commute with your iPhone. This allows maximum flexibility for accessing and reading your newspapers whenever on whichever device you own. PressReader is available for the following platforms: Android, iPad, iPhone/iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, PC, Mac, eReaders. Windows 7 Slate PCs will be supported in the very near future. With over 1700+ full-content newspapers and magazines from across the globe available every day, and various subscription plans available, don’t wait!

Subscription plan (same for both Pressdisplay and Pressreader)

Please note that this price list is current as of today, June 1st 2011 and may be subject to change without notice.

There are many other features inside the app that make it indispensable. There is also an audio playback feature available. Simply tap on the headphone icon on any article and the article will be read for you. You can zoom in on a page simply by pinching with your fingers or tapping on the font size buttons. You can share an article with someone via email, Facebook, Twitter. Plus, you can print out an article or a page wirelessly from your iPhone. Scan through pages in the newspaper simply by flipping through thumbnail images of the screen.

As mentioned previously, you can access over 1700 newspapers and magazines from all over the world. Want to read up on news from your native country in Ireland? You can subscribe to the Irish Independent. Or if you’re from New Zealand, you may want to read from the New Zealand Herald. With over 1700 newspapers, there’s bound to be something you’re interested in, no pun intended.

Plus, you can search for a certain keyword and the app will search across publications to provide you with results.

As expected, the app supports both landscape and portrait viewing so if you feel you wish to view the article in landscape, simply tilt it around and the screen will immediately shift to landscape mode and vice versa.

There’s a Top Stories page that gives you a page full of articles from all across the globe that are considered “top story” offering you a collection of articles that you may be interested in, from publications all across the globe.

All you purchased newspaper issues are sorted chronologically with the latest issues up top. To delete issues to save storage, simply swipe from left to right on the issue you wish to delete and tap on the red Delete button.

You are provided with 7 trial issues for free. After downloading your seventh newspaper, you will be prompted to sign up for a subscription.

More details of PressReader for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (taken from Apple iTunes store)

PressReader brings over 1,800 full-content newspapers from 94 countries in 48 languages to your iPad & iPhone. Download PressReader today and receive 7 issues for FREE!*

Choose from a growing list of the world’s most popular publications including:

? The Washington Post
? USA Today
? Chicago Tribune
? International Herald Tribune
? Globe and Mail
? National Post
? Vancouver Sun
? Irish Independent
? Irish Times
? Daily Mail
? The Herald
? Hamburger Morgenpost
? Der Tagesspiegel
? Il Messaggero
? Bangkok Post
? Kommersant

to name just a few.

With PressReader, you can hold a digital edition of your favorite publication in your hands and read it from cover to cover, just the way the title was printed — with no compromises in quality, fidelity or content.

Features:

? Set up automated subscriptions to your favorite titles
? Flip pages like you’re reading real publications
? Pan, zoom or rotate pages, articles and photos and view in stunning clarity
? Easily browse publications using intuitive navigational slider
? Open full articles in easy-to-read text view
? Share articles by email, Twitter and Facebook
? Sit back and listen to publications using on-demand audio
? Print full pages and individual articles
? Search online across titles and select titles you wish to download
? Authorize PressReader as part of your PressDisplay.com subscription

*All titles downloaded through this free offer will be paid for by NewspaperDirect in compliance with auditing rules for paid digital editions.

Additional titles can be purchased individually for $0.99 per issue, or downloaded in conjunction with a paid subscription on PressDisplay.com.

Trademarks belong to respective owners.

*****************************************
Please note, if you receive a “Wrong Activation Number” error after installing PressReader v2.3.1, simply de-authorize your device and re-authorize it using your existing PressReader user credentials.
****************************************

What’s New in Version 2.3.1

PressReader v2.3.1 brings with it a couple of cool user requested features and fixes.

Here’s what you can expect:

? Added support for right-to-left page flipping in full newspaper view (applicable publications only)
? Reintroduced automatic zoom out when flipping pages (now controlled in Settings – set to “On” by default)
? Fixed issue causing PressReader crash when default iPad language set to Italian

As always, we would love to hear your feedback! Please feel free to email us with your comments, questions or suggestions at iphonesupport@newspaperdirect.com or by using the “Send Us Feedback” option available through PressReader. Enjoy and please feel free to rate PressReader on iTunes!

Slideshow of PressReader for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Video of PressReader for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Video review of PressReader for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Here are my observations:

I Liked:

Simple, easy to use

The app is very simple to use. Tap the buttons, arrows to do something. Pinch and zoom is supported. If you know how to use your iPhone, you know how to use this app.

Supports both portrait and landscape viewing

The app as it is a newspaper viewing app, supports both portrait and landscape viewing. To view it in landscape, simply tilt the phone so that the phone is on its side and the screen will flip to fit in landscape mode and vice versa. Nice.

Import and view existing PressDisplay subscriptions on device

If you are already a PressDisplay subscriber, you can easily import your subscription over to the PressReader app. You may need to authorize your device to do so but once it’s authorized, you’re good to go. This means that you have the best of both worlds. You can view it on your computer and on your iPhone. Sweet.

Four subscription plans available

There are four different subscription plans available to choose from. For most people, they will likely choose the unlimited monthly subscription as it offers unlimited access to all newspapers on a month to month basis.

Instruction Demo video available

There is an instruction demo video available for viewing to get a quick overview of how to use and navigate around the app.

Feedback email support

You can provide feedback to the development team to let them know your comments about the app. However, as I will mention in the “Dislike” section, I would have preferred if this were expanded to including bug submission.

Supports offline viewing

The app supports offline viewing of already downloaded issues. So, in order to be able to view a newspaper, you will first need to download the entire issue first, which obviously requires internet access. Once it’s downloaded, you can view it without requiring any internet access. I like this feature a lot since I tend to be at places where wi-fi is not readily available and I’m stuck since I’ve got an iPod Touch which relies strictly on wi-fi.

Supports pinch and zoom

You can use the typical touch gesture of pinch and zoom to either zoom in or out of an area. This is especially useful when viewing articles in its original newspaper layout as articles tend to wrap around the page and not optimized for mobile devices. You can zoom in at a level that is comfortable for you.

Displays newspaper in original context

This is one main thing about viewing newspapers via PressDisplay or PressReader as I am able to view the whole newspaper as it was originally laid out. I get to see all the ads, the want ads, and little extra sections that normally are not provided in my online news sites. For a virtual newspaper service to be successful, they must provide the newspaper in the same layout as the original printed form of the newspaper. When the internet first became popular, I was always upset about how many of the stuff that were on the paper were left out of the online version. That frustrated me a lot. Thankfully now, PressDisplay offers the full newspaper in its entirety.

Audio playback of articles available

For those who sometimes don’t have time to read or are visually challenged, the app offers to provide an audio playback of the article. You will listen to an article read by a female voice. So rather than using energy to read an article, you can now opt to listen to it be read to you.

Online search across titles supported

You can search for a keyword or topic and the app will search across the many newspaper content to provide you with results that match your search term. It may be an article from half across the world but the search will yield results. This can be very useful for those who are researching for work or school as you have a great resource in this app.

Supports background music playback

Should you wish to listen to your favorite music while reading your favorite newspaper, the app will allow you to do so. What you listen to, will depend on you.

FREE

The app is free to download and use. However, the app comes with a seven issue download restriction. Once you’ve downloaded seven issues, you will be required to pay for a subscription to download and read any more.

I Didn’t Like:

Not enough subscription plans available

Although there are four different subscription levels, with two of them for coporate and business users, that leaves only two levels for most users. One is for single issues and the other is for monthly unlimited issues. I’m sure many would consider themselves someone in between, who would prefer being able to select perhaps one to three newspaper subscriptions as opposed to paying $30 for unlimited. If offered something like a $9.95 plan for up to three different newspapers, I’m sure many people will go for this type of plan.

Voice for audio playback sounds robotic

Although the idea of having an audio playback of articles is great, being stuck with a specific voice for the audio can be a turn off. I would like to be able to choose from a few different voices, more specifically, a British accent voice which normally would sound much more natural than an American voice, which normally sounds terribly robotic.

Can’t search newspaper by title

For me, I would like to simply go straight to the Wall Street Journal newspaper but unfornately, I have to go scroll all the way down to USA under country in the Store and then I can search for the Wall Street Journal. I think it could make things so much easier if I can simply look for a name of a newspaper instead of breaking it down to country or worse, language. Can you imagine scrolling through the list of English language newspapers?

Frequent crashes when zooming and navigating around page

This is quite an annoyance for me to try to zoom in on a page or article and obviously, I need to be able to move the screen around to be able to read the article and most times, the app will crash and exit. Then, I have to go back and try again and then, it happens again. There are so many crashes before I get extremely annoyed and stop using the app altogether. Which I think, is where a bug submit option with the Feedback button could be extremely useful. Let’s nip this crash asap so that we can get back to enjoying the newspaper.

Brief flash of page refresh is annoying

I find that whenever I go into a specific menu option that the app will quickly flash and refresh the page before I can actually view it or do anything. I find this very annoying and would like it to stop. It’s very distracting to have it briefly do that.

Only 7 free newspaper downloads

Although you are given seven free downloads to try out the service, the seven will come pretty quick since we’re dealing mainly with daily newspapers. After a week of reading, you are forced to either subscribe or stop using it since there are no more freebies.

As I’ve mentioned already, I would prefer a subscription price that is in between the a la carte and the monthly unlimited price. Sure, it may offer unlimited newspaper reading, but who really wants to read THAT much stuff?

Review Summary

PressReader for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad is a great solution to the typical tree cutting paper printed daily newspaper delivery of past decades. Rather than waiting for your morning paper to arrive, you can read it before it even hits the newsstands! Choose from over 1700 newspapers published in 48 languages and from 94 countries right in the palm of your hand! Stay up to date on news half a world away. You can even listen to an audio playback of an article, print an article or a page or share it with friends via Facebook, Twitter or email. This is a great service, similar to what Audible has done for audiobooks and Zinio has done for magazines. However, I would prefer more choice for subscriptions other than per issue or unlimited monthly for consumers. Try it out for free as the first seven downloads are free. A subscription will be required after seven issues are downloaded. Try it out now!

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