Today it was announced that Times Newspapers have released a new Sunday Times Android app for Honeycomb, so I thought I would have a look at it and see what it's like while its still free. Once your free sample issue has expired its £1 for the first 30 days and then £2 a week thereafter. I must admit I don't generally have a daily newspaper but its quite tempting at that price to have it as it saves a journey to the shops. It's particularly tempting if your a commuter.
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| Section Selection Screen |
Once you load the app you are of course prompted to subscribe, as you would expect, but in the top right corner there is the link to the newspaper sections, handily titled Sections.One thing I did notice that once I had selected my free copy to download it did take approx 4 minutes to download and then install it but that maybe down to my 2Mbps broadband.
The interface itself while your in the newspaper is nice and clean and clear. At the top you have your menu options and quick links back to the comments and the front page. The buttons for navigating between stories are down the left and right hand side of the screen but you really don't need them as you can swipe left or right to move around. I thought, on the Galaxy Tab at least, that the swiping was a little slow and shaky but this may have been something happening in the background. The text is clear and as you can see they have made it look like a newspaper with black text on a white background.
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| Front Page |
The free version certainly seems well packed with news items (over 140 pages) and this is only the 1 section of the newspaper so I would expect the paid version to be even more well stocked. On looking through as well I only found what looked to be one advert, although it may have been an advertisement style feature but as it was for virgin I really can't tell. You can download each section individually so if your really not interested in that gardening glossy pull out mag then you don't have to download it which is a neat little feature.
This new Honeycomb optimised app has also prompted me to take a look at the existing Times app which is designed for the mobile phone interface, but actually it tends to scale very well. It does only work in portrait mode which means you have to turn the tablet on its side, however sometimes portrait is much better than the primary landscape view. I know I have found this when surfing certain websites in the past.
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| The Times - Front Page |
As you can see from the above screenshot its not quite as good as view as with the Honeycomb optimised version or as the print newspaper. One can only expect that shortly there will be a Honeycomb version of The Times daily newspaper. Again you can navigate to each story by click on it and then move left and right by swiping through the stories. As its really designed for phones there is very few buttons in the app and you have click the menu button at the bottom of the screen, in practice you have very little need of this though.
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| The Times - Formula 1 |
The screen again is very easy to read and laid out well but for the ultimate in readability, if your not worried about pictures, then there is a Kindle version of The Times and The Sunday Times which is displayed in e-ink. This of course makes it much more readable in bright or direct sunlight, something you would struggle with on the Galaxy Tab. I guess the question is are they a good replacement for the paper edition? Well if as long as your not interested in the crossword (something available in the iPad edition) then yes I would say its a good replacement but obviously its not free.
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