Editions by AOL (for iPad)

The Daily ($0.99 per issue, 4 stars). Flipboard (Free, 4.5 stars). SkyGrid (Free, 3.5 stars). Zite (Free, 4.5 stars). The iPad has no shortage of news reading apps, which makes AOL's entry into the space with the freshly launched Editions by AOL (free) challenging. How does a company position its app, which culls news content into an easily digestible layout just like its rivals, stand out from the pack and draw the public's attention? AOL, frankly, hasn't done anything radically different with its newsreader (it's a lot like The Daily in that it updates once per day), but it's well designed and borrows a few elements from its rivals to form a solid, if not truly remarkable, app that's worth consideration despite a few flaws.

Set Up and Interface
You're prompted to connect to your social networks?AOL/AIM, Facebook, and Twitter are offered here?that will assist Editions in customizing your reading experience. Zite, on the other hand, offers Delicious, Google Reader, Read It later, and Twitter, but no Facebook, so Editions may prove attractive to those who frequently use the world's biggest social network. As with Zite, Editions gives you the option to skip this process entirely, but I chose to log in with my Facebook and Twitter credentials.

After doing so, I arrived at a screen that let me further customize the Editions experience, by selecting a color scheme. I chose light blue, which was one of the eight selections available, but users can select seven other colors. Just south of the color selection area is a personalization area. There I found two sections: My Sections and Additional Section. My Sections was pre-populated with six topics?To News, Local News, Technology, Business, Entertainment, and Sports?which is a fair approximation of what I gab about on social networks. I only added two additional topics, Science and Music, but you can select as many as sixteen.

Tapping "I'm Done-Make My First Edition" took me to a grayed out Editions home screen, which replicated a magazine placed on a wooden table or countertop. I saw my color selection used in the Editions logo, and noticed small magazine-like touches such as a AOL barcode, and delivery sticker (which displayed the local weather as I opted to activate location-based services). The issue downloaded in two minutes over the office wireless signal. Tapping the cover?which featured the Mubarak corruption trial?opened the digital publication.

The Editions Experience
Similar to The Daily, Flipboard, Zite, and other iPad news reading apps, Editions features a print-style layout and plenty of white space that makes scanning headlines and blurbs very easy on the eyes. As I paged through the content, which leaned heavily toward the American debt crisis issue, by swiping from right to left, I noticed that the navigation wasn't as smooth as I'd like?there was some stuttering. That wasn't my only issue with Editions; some of the photos were horrendously low-res and pixilated?something that I never encountered with other news reader apps. Clicking through to the webpages revealed pixilated image there, so it wasn't the app to blame.

Each news section (which is filled with stories from well known brands such as Bloomburg Businessweek, CNN, The Huffington Post, and Fox) has a splash page that features a large image and a highlighted article. There you find an edit button that lets you further customize by adding a source (such as The New York Daily News), follow product (like the iPad), or a company (I selected PC Magazine-Ziff Davis). Unfortunately, these additions don't behave like RSS feeds, which display content as soon as you subscribe and let you import content from any website. Editions only lets you select publications in its database, unlike Flipboard.

A menu bar rests at the bottom of the formatted pages. Using it you can open a table of contents sidebar for quickly jumping to any story (something that I wish that I wish every news reader possessed), alter the text size (small, medium, large), scroll through the various sections, and even set the time when you'd like the latest edition delivered?very cool. For example, if you leave your iPad on and connected to a WiFi signal overnight, you will awake to find a fresh issue waiting for you.

Tapping an article opens the full page within the app, but can opt to view it within Safari for a better view (which is something that the other news reading apps do as well). You can also bookmark it. Editions, like Zite, displays related tags on these pages that let you alter what's fed your way. For example, an article about the Tea Party featured tags for "The Tea Party," "The Tea Party Movement," "Fox News," and other related subjects. Tapping a tag a second time turns it red, signaling that you'll see less of that topic. Another tap brings you back to neutral. Editions lets you share interesting stories via email, Facebook, or Twitter. The app will not let you read in landscape mode, which is something that Flipboard, The Daily, and Zite are capable of doing.

The goodwill Editions had built up during my first day's reading was severely depleted when a fresh issue arrived the next morning, as each attempt to open the read resulted in an app crash. I could read the previous day's issue without any problems, but the current one just wouldn't open. Deleting and then reinstalling the app stopped the crashes and let me read the new issue, but I shouldn't have needed to do that. On top of that, skimming the pages revealed that Editions didn't add iPad or PCMag.com content to the mix?subjects that were still in my list of items to follow even after reinstalling. Bummer.

Extras
Editions gives you a more than just articles. Should you have location-based services activated, you can view the local weather. Even better, if you supply your Facebook credentials and sync to iCal, you can keep track of important upcoming event. It's not at all vital to the reading experience, but it's a nice option.

Should You Read Editions by AOL?
Editions by AOL has a bit of a way to go before it can truly compete with rivals such as Flipboard, The Daily, and Zite. Unlike Flipboard, which provided a slick news reading experience early in the iPad's lifespan when there weren't many competitors, Editions enters the fray with several making its entry not as big an event as it would've been months ago. The stuttering and crashing, however, is the greater issue here, and one that needs to be quickly addressed. Sample it, and hope that an update comes soon.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/NDRqPigQNF4/0,2817,2390449,00.asp

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