Liae Blog

7 months of using Iphone isn’t a very long time to write something of this magnitude, but if every single day is your day to visit news website at least (1 hour daily), then perhaps there could be something to share. So here I am to share with you and see how you will find it.

Among the features of iPhone, you sure like the the Internet browser (Safari) don’t you? If you don’t like it you are probably busy with it’s great feature Youtube or IMS (Instant messaging system). No? then you are probably indulged with the built in mail program that lets you access your web mail account such as gmail.com

Iphone’s Safari brings me the entire World Wide Web in my palm. My favorite sites are news websites and blogs, Google portal, some joke sites when I need a laugh, and some political blogs like politico.com and others at the blogspot.com

Browse news sites on your cellphone, a bit of photos and videos along with the news are  something we all would want to appreciate but not all of them do it. Also, why would anyone be looking for mobile content on Iphone? Why not just visit the regular site.

Well, if you don’t have WIFI, i.e. visiting the main site will be like slow.

I have noticed that buildings which use A/C have more reception bars than those that don’t have A/C. Wonder why ? Call me silly if you like, because we all know that the Phone’s Reception bars can drop to zero inside a building if there are no airs coming in, and reception bars can change even with an inch of a movement from one side to another!

A friend of mine, sticks his phone outside the window!

Although things might change in the future; such as specialized antenna in buildings that  receive not only digital signals for our TVs and Internet but also for our mobile devices.

For the purpose of “download speed comparison”, testing was done at home where I can get 4 to 5 bars – very god reception that is. But again not always do I get those bars. So on this day when I am testing, I have 4 bars for all these sites, it’s a lucky day!

We all know that search engines and news sites dominate most of the Internet traffic – they also do well in delivering content formatted to user’s device; be it for mobile or desktop using all kinds of Internet Browsers.

iPhone has become so famous, news web sites are taking the advantage and so are the portals like Google and Yahoo. They are delivery specially Formatted content only designed for iPhone, making the content more user-friendly, easy to navigate, and get the content faster. They push only the contents enough for user’s to use. Unlike the regular website which could be so attractive with flashy designs and tons of graphics, these so called formatted contents are rich in text and low in graphics, the idea is simple – reduce what’s not needed for users, but enough content and graphics that even a small mobile device can handle. And as for iPhone, there is no need to reduce graphics or etc. You can actually enjoy viewing the regular website instead of the mobile version. But mobile version will be much faster since there aren’t WIFI’s everywhere even in this land of superpower.

So most users are using the regular Unlimited Internet package from AT&T (in the United States). It’s not that slow nor its fast. It’s in the middle.
News websites to a die-hard fans like me who use Iphone to browse news, are looking for everything. Graphics, Videos, Texts, and all, as well as the menus, options and links to click and follow reading another news. Reading news and enjoying it and loving it. They could be looking for design. And they could be asking tons of questions… and here are mine I wanted to drop it here before I do the comparison of the sites.

• When I tilt my screen, will the font remain the same ?
• When I am half way reading a news and decide to lock the phone, then come back and read, will I be at the exact paragraph where I left off ?
• Will I get some news photos to watch and can I see them in big. I mean big enough to believe ?
• Will I have a link to an external resource from where the story is being heavily written ?
• Will it take forever or a news video to play? It does!
• Can I sign up for breaking news so I will know in advance so I can tease my friends? Buddy, did you hear about that news?, I can rely with 100% confidence “I know, I already know! U R Dumb!”
• Well the questions can go on and on…. Will my Iphone actually have a feature that will read the news content so I can look else where ? Can some lady please read my news, while I do something else ?

Enough about talks. Lets get to the point now.
COMPARISON:

In this post, let’s explore, and compare news sites that are formatted for Iphone. I’m not going to compare to show you which is best or worse, rather I’m just going to explore. I will write, and you decide and share you knowledge as well. Also do know there are many other probably even better sites that I don’t know.
Updated on September 7, 2008 . P.S. This post is subjected to update in the future with another post. Bookmark if you like. All download tests were done 8:37PM, with AT&T’s service provider, inside my home with reception being 4 bars. No WIFI access, just the regular Internet package. And My Iphone was among the first Iphones Apple had released. Here we go…

CNN NEWS

Main News Site : http://www.cnn.com/
Mobile address as shown on the iPhone: http://m.cnn.com/

Description :

The fastest of all but there is a reason – because the content is not fully formatted for Iphone. To me, it appears that the contents are formatted for all devices. Home screen consists of links to news stories and other resources with a small picture on top and a brief headline linking to the latest news. It seems to me that CNN has yet to format content for iPhone. Why is CNN not formatting its news for Iphone? Is Bill Gates telling CNN to wait ?

I haven’t tried accessing the address from another mobile device, but it looks as if this is it, for all mobile devices.

Could there be a reason why CNN is doing this. But I am happy because I can actually increase the font size unlike those that are formatted for Iphone, I haven’t been able to increase font so reading is troublesome at times.
It’s the most updated I have found.  So, if you are like me, wanting to know what’s happening not only in the U.S. but around the world and want regular updates, this site does better and this might be yours too. When a story breaks, you can read the breaking news on top with a brief caption surrounded by a yellow box. Guess what makes you angry. No links to read further. Come on, a link please so we know a little more about the breaking eyes. Is the baby chicken out of the egg shelf, half-way? or is it dancing already on the floor ? Just a yellow bar won’t work. Sorry. You are telling me this: Three is a terrible news broken. Now what. Just stay where you are and not know about it further. For news readers like me, I wanna go deep and findout a little bit more than just breaking news. Go break it more and show.
Here, You can check weather; enter zipcode and you are done to read 5 days forecast for your region. You might not like that feature since you already have the push content from Yahoo – The “Weather Icon” as part of the iPhone ’s feature which can be found on your iPhone’s Home Screen. See Weather icon there. But, I like the Vote on the Question of the Day. It’s just fun. But it could go further rather than just a click to see the result, it could actually pull more content and display below the poll data, so t has much better use.

Like all news sites, sign up to get text messages of breaking news is here. I haven’t used this feature. But if you have limited Internet plans, but you do have sufficient text messaging plan, this Mobile Breaking News Alert might be a pretty cool feature to use.
Conclusion : Fast, Frequent Updates, Lack of Multimedia, No User preferences recognized and/or saved, Read Paginated Articles or Full Articles, Content fits your screen, Content can be enlarged, so good aim towards accessibility for those who have trouble with small fonts.

MSNBC.msn.com

Main news site : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Mobile address as shown on iPhone: same as above.
Description: I love this site like all here, it’s wonderful. It’s fast as the CNN.com. What you gonna like is that the MAIN story is alreayd displayed so no need to wait for heated news to be shown only after clicking on a link, its there for you to read – just scroll down and you have the latest stuff right infront of your news. You can increase the font size etc. So it is similar to CNN.com (not yet fully formatted for Iphone) [About being able to increase the font and pictures; this is true for all regular sites as well as contents that aren't formatted for Iphone or for mobile. Most people who have Iphone would be lucky to get WIFI so they don't really need to visit mobile sites, but some might for the sake of speed and for fun.]
After you read the top news, there are bunches of links under the topic More Headlines: They seem to categorize news improperly, at least I think so, I could be wrong. So you might spend a little bit of time searching to find what you want to click to read here. Politics? I want you to Go down and click on the Menu Item 6. It’s about getting used to it. But this is by far no worse or better than the others listed here, that’s my view after regular use.
Video Coverage:   The best of all is the “Video Coverage”, you gonna love this if you are a news video fan. Foxnews which is listed below and CBSnews do better in delivery videos faster than the rest listed here. After all, what’s Iphone for ?

Conclusion : Fast, simple, a bit could be done to categorized news articles, length of video  could be made a bit longer. Hey, it has something that none has “Edito’s picked Video?” Wow.  But often, I find it really worthless, useless. So my advice, browse and pick the video yourself. Editors do well in newspapers not on video picking. Take youtube editor’s picking videos selected as “Featured” and just ask how many people agree that how many of the featured videos are good enough to watch.
FOXNEWS

Main news site : http://www.foxnews.com/
Mobile address as shown on iPhone: http://iPhone.foxnews.com/

Description :
Very well formatted content, it fits perfectly on the screen.
It includes a search option on top, so you search easily (just click on the magnifying glass with a handle). I find it fast like others listed below. What you will love most? Videos are thumbs up! Almost every news article offers a small Icon related to the article, and below the icon is a button called Tap. Just tap it and you have a beautiful slide-show to view news pictures, and when you are done, just click the link “Return to the Story” which will take you back where you left off. “Tap” – simple and very useful feature which is rarely found in other news sites mentioned on this post. Tap, Tap, after all Iphone is just that. and this Tap feature is one of my best part here.

Conclusion : Slide-show (Tap) is a cool feature you will love, news videos you can watch easily, browsing is fun here too. Love to see contents truly formatted for iPhone? You will love this news site and the one listed below. No user preferences are saved and/or recognized.

CBS NEWS

Main News site : http://www.cbsnews.com/
Mobile address as shown on iPhone: http://iPhone.cbsnews.com/

Once, this site used to look a lot like the content formattted by foxnews.com. It was much faster than what it looks today, but by no means it’s slower than the others in relative to the content it carries on the first page.  Ever since this corporation bought CNET.com and it’s associated sites, it looks very Tech savvy, attractive and offers news and rich multimedia. If you love Rich Media, this is your news site. But just reading news from one site, wouldn’t fill your thrust for news. Would it ?
You can sign up (i.e. Enter your phone) to get breaking news alert, watch videos, browse through news fully categorized just like the Foxnews.com’s content. When it comes to speed, it’s a bit slower than Fox News and Times.

Conclusion: iPhone isn’t just for plain texts and boring links. It’s for rich multimedia, and CBS takes it to that level. You will love the way it shows Sections fully categorized from US to Evening News. Just click the Plus sign and a list of links pop up, no waiting for links to news to arrive; they are already loaded when you visit the site. Paginated articles or Read all in one page. Log in and personalize the content. Of all the sites, CBS News’s content formattted for Iphone looks more futuristic and that’s something every user will appreciate.

Time

Main news site : http://www.time.com/
Mobile address as seen on iPhone : http://mobile.time.com/

Description:

Content is fully formatted for iPhone. Sliding effect is cool as you can see when you click on the link and as you browse the mobile site. Wanna see photos capturing moments, news, or even views? Then, Time’s Photo Essay is worth more than the full page of article. It also carries news, articles, views and opinions on broader topics which I classify as “Keeping an Eye on The World”.
Conclusion:  Major news stories of the world, followed by neatly organized categories and blogs are here. For the lack of Multimedia contents, it points to you to use CNN’s main site. That’s not a surprise since Time and CNN are news partners. Paginated articles but No “View All in one page” available. Shows related articles so you don’t have to search to find the article you could be interested in. 10 Questions, Time Lists, Quotes of the Day can make your Every Day worth the while at mobile section of time.com.

Google’s News Search

Main news site : http://news.google.com/
Mobile site as seen on iPhone : http://news.google.com/
Google is leaving everyone behind. If you are looking for top news, world news and you want the news to read from various sources, there is no other better place than this. But it does acts silly at times, perhaps has unimaginable visitors. A few days back I clicked the link “Most Popular”, I didn’t get any error. the screen was blank. Could it now be gaining more visitors than CNN.com ? We all love to find news not just from one source but various and to me, nobody does this better than google’s news search. It’s extremely fast and also you can search for a particular news here.

Conclusion: I have a feeling that, one day, Google might news crews on the ground and beat CNN.com. I don’t see a reason why they should simply spider news sites and be so popular and not have any crews on the ground. Isn’t that amazing. Try this and you will love it, promise you. Yes, you will love it like all the sites listed here.

LA Times

Main news site : http://www.latimes.com/
Mobile site as seen on iPhone : http://mobile.latimes.com/

Description:
Conclusion : Blazing fast mobile site. I have noticed that sites powered by Crisp Mobile Inc, delivers content faster even the content of the first page is bigger. It is also fast because the first page basically with links to news resources.
I will try to add more news sites. For now, enjoy them and if I have missed any, please let me know. I am a news hungry guy and I love news sites more than anything else. Every site has something you like and something you don’t like. It’s nearly impossible for one to judge only based one factor for example the quality of a video or content or accessibility.Browse these news sites and see for yourself.

Challenges for These and Many Other News Sites are

• Detect User’s Location and Deliver First News Article Relevant to the Location
• Save and Use User Preferences such as Paginated Articles, View Articles On A Page. If I like reading articles on a single page, remember my choice the next time I visit your site.
• Pod casting. Not all of us want to drain our iPhone batteries watching videos. An alternative option on every article page ? “Hear this news” This would also add “accessibility”; delivering news to blind persons.
• Customizable News, Videos, Articles and what not and everything – allow users to customize the content. I hope the news sites will learn something from igoogle.com

and You ?