Top Of The Morning: Morning Assistant Review

Developer: App Distillery
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 5

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The idea is that Top of the Morning is the perfect app to look at, first thing in the morning, so as to work out what needs doing and what to expect from the day. On one screen, it offers the date and time, weather conditions, any reminders or appointments that have been set, news from the RSS feed of the user's choosing, and stock market information. It's a great starting point, but it's rather limited in practice.

This is most noticeable when looking at the Reminders and Calendar sections. Reliant upon the stock apps of the same names, it's not possible to add anything from within the app. Instead, users must stick to the stock apps and use Top of the Morning to check the information in a central place. Similarly, the weather report is restricted to the local conditions rather than the choice of different places.

There's more variety available for the news stories, thankfully, offering up the 5 most recent stories amongst many different sources, but the Stock Market facility is restricted to the NASDAQ, Dow Jones and S&P 500.

It's unfortunate that Top of the Morning is quite restrictive, as it's pleasant looking with a few different themes to choose from. With the right amount of functionality, it'd be an appealing app to open first thing in the morning to get up to date quickly. It's fast loading and simple to swipe and tap through. It could really do with some more original content, though, or perhaps a slightly lower asking price.