vietnamese, virtually

2009-05-25

Safari is much better for news reading than iPhone apps

I have always been a big fan of iPhone news apps, such as: NYTimes, Bloomberg, WSJ, Reuters, AOL, etc. However, I have recently uninstalled all but one, and have read the news almost exclusively on Safari for iPhone -- if the news site is available in a mobile version.

The reasons are several:
  • in Safari, most of the screen is used for text display -- and mostly only text -- rather than fixed sections in the news apps for ads and other distracting graphic elements that reduce text area. (To view news photos, I use AOL's Pixcetera app)
  • it is more convenient, efficient and less disruptive to email articles on Safari by using the toread.cc bookmarklet. No need to jump into the Mail app, and back again to the news app currently in use
  • there are fewer iPhone apps to carry around
The one news app that remains is Bloomberg, because only an iPhone app can dynamically display charts and graphs.

So, if you prefer text for your news, go Safari. But stick to iPhone apps for graphics and charts.