Before NPR released their iPhone app, I used Thomson Reuters and CNN Newsreader to get news on my iPhone. Thomson was a significant upgrade over the CNN Newsreader and now, NPR is a significant upgrade over Thomson.
The first feature that strikes you when you start the app is the News. NPR has high quality news as you know and now it is right at your fingertips. The stories are updated all day long and at times have accompanying audio. The audio can be listened to immediately or added to a playlist for later. The news is broken into three main categories – Top Stories, More Stories or Newscast which is a 5 minute piece that is updated every hour.
In addition to standard news articles and the newscast, NPR makes all of their shows available to you. If a show is on the air at that time, there will be an “on-air” logo next to the program and you can tap into it live!
The NPR iPhone app also lets you listen to live broadcasts from any NPR member station. You can search by state, by zip code, or let the iPhone GPS app locate the nearest one for you. The stations will let you listen to the live stream or any other program from the recent past.
To download the free app, go to iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews or search for “NPR News” in the iTunes App Store. I hope you enjoy it like I do!
-Dana
