Journalisms grey lady, the New York Times just threw down her cane and sprinted to the forefront of online newspapers with the release of version two of the Times Reader a downloadable application built on Adobes AIR framework.
The new version is a lightweight application takes advantage of Adobes expertise in print layout to dynamically re-size images and flow text depending on the size of your screen or how wide or tall you set the Reader window.
Its clear from just a few minutes of playing with the app that readers will spend much of their newsreading time in the future in stand-alone apps, whether they be coded in Air, Microsofts Silverlight or Mozillas upcoming, open-source competitor Prism.
Right now, Adobe Airs NYT Reader delivers elegantly.
Stories fall into comfortable columns, that feel familiar to newspaper readers. Photos jump out at you and since the application downloads the entire days news in the background, jumping to the next story (easily done with the right arrow key) is nearly instantaneous. Browsing the news via pictures is downright pleasant no lag at all. Oh, and once the app has loaded the days news you can read the paper without a net connection perfect for a commute.
Theres a browse feature that lets you see all of the stories on a page, and see where you can navigate from there a fairly decent attempt at re-creating the flow and serendipity of a printed newspaper, where a story can catch your eye and you can feel where you are in a news section.
Want to see Sundays Week in Review even though its Monday morning? No problem, back the app up a day and the Sunday paper loads.
The Readers main drawback? A bit too much fidelity to the traditional newspaper layout, which while familiar isnt always ideal, especially when a story is resized under a photo to just a few lines of text (see photo).
The other drawback? Unfortunately, for those used to reading the news for free, Times Reader only gives you a some of the front page, the fun online crossword and most of the business section gratis.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
