News24 Android App review
News24 released their app for Google Android handsets (HTC, OpenMoko available in South Africa and Samsung soon)
Some of the features include…
Up to the second news, sport, finance, motoring and entertainment news
- View current and 7 day weather forecast
- Local restaurant search
- Customisable homescreen widget – select content and set refresh rates
- Share content, provide feedback & choose start-up view
- Easy tabbed navigation
- Touchscreen or TrackBall interface – with haptic feedback (vibration) option
- Read stories in portrait or landscape mode
All good and well but one of the features that bug me most is when the phone starts up it immediately tries to connect to the web via GPRS, 3G or Wifi. I’ve been running the OpenMoko to only use Wifi and it usually takes a few seconds to connect to the nearest Wifi hotspot at home or wwwork. The News24 Android app doesn’t check if wifi is available before trying to get the latest Sport, Financial, Weather or any other 24 vertical news and causes the app to hang. Maybe it just this phone, I’m not sure. Another aspect of the apps UI that could be improved upon is the secondary navigation within the main categories, it’s just to small to touch with your fingers. The F1 category in the Sport24 section is a prime example. All in all it is a good app to stay abreast with the latest news provided by the 24.com team.