The Early Edition 2 Review – If you read RSS, you have to get this

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On March 28, 2012

App Type: Uncategorized

The Early Edition 2 Review – If you read RSS, you have to get this

Our rating:

By: Glasshouse Apps

Version #: 2.2.1

Date Released: 2012-03-23

Developer: Glasshouse Apps

Price: 4.99

User Rating:
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I’m an avid RSS reader. Even if I have cut down my subscriptions, I have something like 60 feeds, and some of them are aggregators that can rack up to 20 posts each day. In practical terms, I can easily get more than 200 new RSS stories each days. With my previous RSS reader it was also a great problem: if I stopped reading RSS for two or three days, the looming 600 in red type in my home screen was a terrible sight. After all, I’m not interested in all these posts, only a handful. Passing them quickly and reading a snippet is often good enough for me, but no pure RSS reader complied.

Flipboard and Persona/ were very close, their RSS readers offered a snippet and image. But Flipboard lacked offline support, and Persona/ is too broad: it does a wonderful work with RSS+twitter+Facebook, but used for only RSS is just adequte. The Early Edition 2 on the other hand is the perfect tool for the job. A very beautiful tool, too, giving one of the best reading experiences in my iPad, ever.

The Early Edition 2 is an RSS reader (it can tie to your Google Reader account, by the way), as it should be clear by now. It’s aim is to create a newspaper from your RSS feeds, as simple as that. To get most of it, you should classify your feeds by categories, for example I have programming, writing, drawing, go and news among many more. This generates “sections” within your personal newspaper. You can sort them as you wish, and just read as you would expect: by flipping pages. The flipping animation is also very smooth, following your finger elastically like a real paper sheet would.

Okay, so it does the work it promises… But there’s more. TEE2 also fetches images and posts for offline reading. In the newspaper you find images and part of a text snippet for the post. If the post catches your attention, you tap it to read in full. If it doesn’t… Just pass the page! As easy as that, clearing 200+ RSS feeds is a matter of minutes, unless you are committed to reading them all. And if you are, TEE2 is as good as any other reader would be.

Also of note are the sharing options: in addition to starring in Google Reader and sharing by email, you can send to instapaper, twitter, facebook, delicious, read it later, readibility, pinboard and evernote. Try saying this last phrase without breathing! Even if the app is not any close to free, it is so good I can’t even think of anything I have not liked about it. Okay, one thing: the share button and the share by email button are hard to tell one from the other. Okay, one small thing!

Interesting fact: While The Early Edition 2 is collecting data to prepare the newspaper, and also while it is loading, it shows the image of a folded newspaper (like those you could get delivered by a paperboy,) this newspaper shows the text of the iconic Apple advertisement The Crazy Ones.

Quick Take

Value:Huge

Would I Buy Again:Absolutely

Learning Curve:Low

Who Is It For:RSS readers

What I Like:The layout, how it works, how it looks, how it makes sharing easy

What I Don't Like:The share button position

Final Statement:Buy this! Buy it now! Buy before everyone else has it!

Read the Developer's Notes:
? Fully optimized with retina graphics for the new iPad! ?

In 2010 The Early Edition redefined the daily newspaper when it launched alongside the original iPad. Now it's been completely redesigned and engineered exclusively for iOS 5. Watch the video demo at earlyedition2.com

? WHAT IS IT?
The Early Edition 2 is a beautiful, up-to-the-minute newspaper that puts you in the editorial seat. RSS feeds are the basis for content and now it can be used either as a standalone app or in sync with a Google Reader account.

? DYNAMIC PAGE LAYOUT
Now sporting a gorgeous column-based page layout, The Early Edition 2 uses an algorithm to intelligently position stories based on their content. This means every page is now both beautiful and dynamic.

? TURNING PAGES
Page turns can now follow your finger which looks stunning. Or you can simply swipe horizontally or tap the edge of the page.

? SHARE
Sharing services include: Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, Readability, Read It Later, Delicious, Evernote & Pinboard.

? LESS CLUTTER, MORE CONTENT
Our intuitive multitouch interface strips back visual clutter so you can focus on the news. The main newspaper view is now completely free of buttons in both orientations which means you can simply enjoy browsing and reading your paper.

? GO OFFLINE
All images are now cached on the device so if you go out of network coverage, you still get the full reading experience. Also, you can choose to either load images in real-time while you navigate the paper or set it to preload all images. Preloading images is especially useful for Wifi iPads or use when a 3G network is unavailable such as flights.

? IMAGES, IN ALL THEIR GLORY
Tapping any image in the main paper view takes you to a swipeable gallery mode, perfect for photography, design or comic feeds. Swipe vertically to view all the images in a single story or horizontally to view images from the next or previous story.

Article By

Ruben Berenguel is finishing his PhD in Mathematics while writing in mostlymaths.net about being a 'geek of all trades'. He also happens to be the senior editor in the What's on iPhone network: any complaints go to him!

ruben has written 174 awesome app reviews.

You can read other great content from ruben at https://www.mostlymaths.net