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Google will reportedly revamp News with video and speed tweaks
Google News is getting a major refresh, pulling in features from YouTube and the Play Newsstand magazine app to modernize the product, according to Ad Age. Google has been in talks with publishers over the update, which is expected to debut at the I/O developer conference next week.
Google Play Newsstand now shows stories based on your interests
If you're a heavy user of Google's news reader, get ready to bear with some big changes: today, the company gave Newsstand a complete overhaul. The updated app takes a step back from the categorically organized feed the app is known for to focus on creating an experience specifically tailored to the interests of the user. The idea is to create a more personal experience that factors in local news, personal interests and the day's major headlines.
Apple News app brings 'beautiful' personalized content to iOS
. Today at WWDC Apple announced a Flipboard-like news curator called, wait for it, Apple News. Like Facebook's Instant Articles push, it includes articles specifically built for the app, but can also pull in content from elsewhere on the internet. The New York Times will push 30 free articles through the app every day, while other partners, like ESPN, will bring videoclips and infographics. The secret to the app is the new "Apple News Format" that allows for custom fonts, multitouch gestures and layouts that scale from phones to tablets.
Rolling Stone archives hit Google Play Newsstand this week
Have you ever felt the need to dive into the history of music, movies and other pop culture? Well, you'll soon be able to do so with the help of Rolling Stone and Google Play Newsstand. The magazine is set to add its archive of decade-spanning content to the digital repository tomorrow, and some of it will be available free of charge. Three to four articles from each of the back issues can be read inside the app or on the Rolling Stone site at no cost. Later on, the plan is to bolster relevant content with the addition of sound and video. The magazine claims its archived issues do quite well, especially during certain events, and this gives readers another way to access it. For Google, the partnership shows off its reading platform with material from a popular weekly publication, which sounds like a win-win to me.
Google Play Newsstand gets a redesign and new magazine view
Google is working its way through all its apps and updating them in anticipation of the release Android L. Next on the list is Play Newsstand, which most obviously is getting a Material Design facelift. That means a card based UI with bigger images and lots of transitional animations. But a visual revamp on its own isn't particularly exciting. The best news is that the reading experience for print magazines has been revamped. Until now reading a magazine meant scrolling around a PDF version of the print editions, with a few notable exceptions that had "interactive" editions. Now, you'll actually be able to browse a list of articles in the issue and open them up in a format that's much more phone friendly. You get clean easy to read text, without having to sacrifice the big images. Newsstand is also getting much more fine grained control over the topics in the explore section. So instead of just Food & Drink, you can get articles dedicated to vegetarian cuisine or the paleo diet delivered straight to your phone. The new version of Google Play Newsstand will be rolling out on Android over the next week. iOS users will probably have to wait a long while...
Google Currents finally becomes Newsstand on iOS
Just as it happened on Android last year, now the iOS version of Google Currents has also been turned into Google Play Newsstand. But the name change isn't the only thing different with the app on Apple's platform. The newly dubbed Google Play Newsstand brings refreshed looks and functionality as well, which make it possible for you to browse through articles in smoother fashion and easily subscribe to topics and publications you're most interested in. While it definitely took the search giant a long time to tweak the Google Currents moniker, at least the application is finally more in line with sibling services like Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Books and Google Play Music.
Feedback Loop: Home automation, Chrome extensions and more
Welcome to Feedback Loop, a weekly roundup of the most interesting discussions happening within the Engadget community. There's so much technology to talk about and so little time to enjoy it, but you have a lot of great ideas and opinions that need to be shared! Join us every Saturday as we highlight some of the most interesting discussions that happened during the past week. This week, we take a look at getting started with home automation, try to identify apps that drain our phone batteries, share our favorite Chrome extensions and discuss whether digital magazine subscriptions make sense. All this and more past the break!
Google infuses Play Newsstand, Movies & TV and Keep apps for Android with new features
While Microsoft was busy announcing its updated mobile platform (among other things) today, Google spent its time pushing updates for its Play Newsstand, Movies & TV and Keep apps for Android. Newsstand's update, in particular, makes it easier to discover more things to read. New tabs on the "Read now" menu provide instant access to sections like business, entertainment and sports, while the My News and My Magazines pages have been combined to form a 2-in-1 destination called My Library.
'Google Play Newsstand' could bring digital newspaper subscriptions to Android soon
You can already download anything from TV shows to magazines from Google Play, so it's no surprise that newspaper subscriptions might come in the future. Android Police tore down the upcoming Google Play version 4.4., and it strongly hints at a portal called Newsstand. It's not exactly brand new -- it first appeared as Play News within the store's website code earlier this year -- but the recent discovery makes the section's debut look more likely. While there's no concrete info at this point, a close scrutiny of the APK's code has revealed that the Magazines section might merge with it, creating a centralized store for virtual readables. That makes sense, considering it's most likely designed as a competition to the iOS app of the same name. The code also hints at a free trial, but you know what'll make the service better? If newspapers offer free digital versions to print subscribers from the start. [Image credit: Bill Ward, Flickr]
It's the little things: The tiny changes that may make you fall in love with iOS 7
When Apple launches iOS 7 later this year it will be the biggest overhaul the mobile operating system has ever received. But with change comes fear, and there's already a divide forming between those who can't let go of the iOS they know and love and those who welcome the revamp with open arms. There are a number of relatively small tweaks and additions that have really sold me on iOS 7, and they may do the same for you. These aren't big things that you're likely to see on an iPhone commercial -- like automatic app updating or a smarter Siri, for example -- but they may indeed be just as important. Massive folders I can't tell you how excited I was when folders were first introduced to iOS, and though the feature did take care of the issue of having pages and pages of apps, I was soon left with several pages full of folders instead. Instead of allowing folders to just hold however many apps could fit on the drop-down screen like they do now, folders have pages that can be swiped through, allowing you to put all of your games in a single folder, all of your business apps in another, and so on. Smart contrast features Without the shaded black bars of iOS 6 and earlier to host the clock on the lock screen and the info section on the top of the home screen, picking a single color for these rather important bits of text would have made them hard to read against certain wallpapers. iOS 7 gets around this by monitoring the brightness of your background and adjusting the color of the font accordingly. Depending on your wallpaper the font will switch between black and white, and there's also a slight shading that will be applied to the areas around the text depending on what the system determines will be the easiest to read. It's a remarkably intelligent feature that could have very easily been completely overlooked. Safari's slick tabs To be fair, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with the way Safari handles tabs in iOS 6. It's functional, if a bit ugly, but it gets the job done. But when I first saw iOS 7's tab browsing feature I may have audibly uttered "oooh." Not only is it now possible to see many more tabs on a single screen, flipping through them is buttery smooth in a very CoverFlow-esque way. You can snap to the window you want and kill unneeded tabs much faster, all with the added bonus of it being just plain pretty to look at. Multitasking previews Yet another new feature that ups both form and function, the multitasking feature has been overhauled to offer a preview of the current state of the app, rather than just a list of icons that leave you to guess what exactly you might have been in the middle of. The preview windows look great and are large enough that you'll instantly know exactly where you were in just about any app, be it a game, messaging client, etc. I have a feeling this is going to be one of the features that we'll look back on next year and wonder how we got by without it. Newsstand finally falls in line Newsstand has been a problem for a long time. No, I'm not talking about the app itself -- from all accounts it's matured since its introduction and it's a reliable way to catch up on magazines and other editorials -- I'm referring to its ability to ruin an otherwise well-organized app collection. Ever since it was introduced, Newsstand has refused to be placed in folders or deleted, regardless of whether or not you have ever used it. Because of this, it's often one of the first things people remove when jailbreaking their devices, and if someone told me they voided the warranty on their device for the sole purpose of removing the offending app, I would have a hard time holding it against them. But now, along with the death of the app's skeumorphic design, comes the ability to grab Newsstand by the scruff of the neck and shove it into whatever folder you see fit. I hope you'll join me in saying: Finally.
Iconic US magazine Saturday Evening Post comes to Newsstand
The Saturday Evening Post, one of America's most iconic magazines, thanks in part to cover artist Norman Rockwell, is finally on Apple's Newsstand. Apparently many people don't know the magazine is still in publication (I didn't, and even the magazine's technology director Steve Harman admits to TechCrunch that many people don't think so either), yet it still has a subscription base of 300,000 annually. And now it's ready to enter the digital age on iOS. The magazine will keep its general-interest focus while attempting to appeal to younger readers with articles on technology and movies. Considering the magazine's history (publishing some of the best short stories by America's most famous writers) and beautiful artwork, I'd love to see the Post begin selling digitized back issues starting with ones that featured F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories. Sadly right now there are no signs of any plans to do that. The Saturday Evening Post is a free download on the app store. Single issues are available for US$3.99, a single issue subscription costs $1.99 per issue until canceled, and a one year (six issues) subscription costs $9.99.
Free VIEW Magazine is filled with intriguing photography
View Magazine is a nicely put-together coffee table ebook for the iPad or iPhone that contains photos that are interesting and certainly not run-of-the-mill sunsets and flowers. A variety of photographers have combined to submit some of their favorite work, and they offer some commentary about the images. There are shots of urban landscapes, people, and nature images, but none are what I would call the standard 'pretty pictures'. That said, the images are striking, and the thoughts behind the images are often illuminating. You won't like everything you see, but there is plenty to choose from. VIEW Magazine used to require a paid subscription, but it has just gone free, and you can manually download an issue or set it up for automatic downloading to Apple's Newsstand app. I found the content stimulating and interesting. Any image can be shared to Facebook or via email. You scroll horizontally to move form article to article, and scroll vertically to explore the content within an article. Bookmarks are available if you find something you want to refer to again. %Gallery-188869% VIEW Magazine is a pretty hefty download; the current issue is about 250 megabytes. The app allows you to save or discard issues, so if you start filling your iOS device you can always dump past issues. VIEW Magazine is universal, but really isn't as effective on an iPhone as it is on the iPad. The newest version supports the Retina display on newer iPads, and the app requires iOS 5 or later. VIEW Magazine is a worthy download, and I think you may find it enjoyable and thought provoking.
The Loop launches a new magazine on iOS Newsstand
Jim Dalrymple of The Loop unveiled a new iOS magazine that'll complement the short news briefs found on his website. Inspired in part by Marco Arment's The Magazine, The Loop magazine will feature long-form articles on music, design, technology, games and Apple from some of the best writers in the business. The Loop Magazine will be published twice a month and will be distributed through Apple's Newsstand. It'll cost US$1.99 a month and will be delivered automatically to your device when a new issue is released. Dalrymple will feature some of the content on his website, but the main avenue of reading will be your iPad or iPhone. You can read more about The Loop Magazine in Dalrymple's announcement post and in the section of his website that is dedicated to the magazine. Production for The Loop magazine will be done with TypeEngine, a publishing platform that expects to deliver 16 new titles this month.
Hearst starts publishing iPad magazines days before print editions
Magazine publishers have more directly embraced tablets over more than a year as it became clearer that they were boosting the bottom line. We may be witnessing a watershed moment today, however. Hearst has started publishing issues for 22 of its magazines in the iOS Newsstand days before their print equivalents hit the racks -- that we can tell, the first time a major magazine producer has given tablets an early lead. While the full terms aren't public, Apple has confirmed to AllThingsD that other publishers are welcome to take the same route, and it mentions in the App Store that other online stores don't have the same privilege. The early access has clear competitive benefits for both Apple and Hearst, which get customers to flock away from competing e-bookstores and publications, but it's also a sign of Hearst's confidence in the tablet as a medium: much like movie studios, it's betting that digital is strong enough to stand on its own.
New Hearst magazine issues will debut first on Apple's Newsstand
The support for iPad versions of traditional print publications might not have been enough to save The Daily from extinction, but magazine publisher Hearst isn't ready to throw the towel in just yet. In fact, quite the contrary: The Loop reports that the company is pushing an all-new initiative to heighten its digital subscriber base by promising to publish new issues of 20 different magazines on iPad before print. Hearst's offerings include publications such as Car and Driver, Popular Mechanics, Redbook, Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, just to name a few. You can browse all the magazines offering early issues on a dedicated page on Apple's Newsstand within iTunes.
Rolling Stone comes to Newsstand
Clue's in the title, really. If you're craving Rolling Stone's eclectic mix of reviews and journalism but didn't fancy the trip to your local dead-tree merchant, it's now available on Newsstand. Each critique will come with a button straight to iTunes, so you can instantly download that amazing album that only garnered 3.5 stars. Annual subscriptions will set you back $19.99 a year, while standalone editions are $4.99 -- but be warned, it might try to sell you a Thunderbolt every now and again.
Wall Street Journal selling subscriptions via Apple's Newsstand
The Wall Street Journal has joined thousands of newspapers and magazines that sell their content through the Apple Newsstand. The move of the Wall Street Journal to Newsstand is surprising for one reason -- the former president of WSJ owner Dow Jones, Todd Larsen, opposed selling subscriptions via the online news kiosk because Apple retains 30 percent of the subscription revenue and also controls all customer billing information. Larsen left the company last summer. The Journal is able to ask subscribers for their email addresses for marketing purposes, and it will also be able to continue to sell digital subscriptions through its own website. Some of the benefits that Wall Street Journal subscribers will see include using their existing iTunes accounts to pay for the paper and automatic background downloading of the publication.
Daily Update for June 14, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Time Inc. relents, moves iOS magazines to Newsstand
Time Inc. appears to have relented in its refusal to sell subscriptions via its iOS apps, from which Apple takes a 30 percent commission. The Sports Illustrated publisher had resisted the move, forcing people to subscribe to the print edition in order to receive it digitally, but an update has moved the apps into Newsstand and now offers digital-only signups. It's not clear what sparked the change, but we're just glad to see everyone thinking about the trees and getting along.
Time, Inc. will sell its magazines on Apple's Newsstand
Laura Lang, CEO of Time, Inc. and Eddy Cue, Apple's VP for Internet software and service, confirmed to The New York Times that Time Inc.'s magazine lineup is coming to the iPhone and iPad. All of Time's magazines including People, Sports Illustrated, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly will be available soon in Apple's Newsstand app container. Up until now, the standalone Time Inc. apps have not enabled subscription purchases in-app. Unlike Condé Nast and Hearst, which adopted Apple's subscription service last year, Time, Inc. has been reluctant to agree to the restrictions Apple imposed on companies that sold magazine subscriptions through its App Store. At the crux of this complaint is customer data, which was held by Apple and not shared with magazine publishers. Apple has eased those restrictions and now gives users the option to share their information to the publisher. Apple's newsstand debuted in October 2011 with iOS 5 and currently sells more than 5,000 magazines and newspapers.