Released just a few weeks ago, US Army News and Information is the first official iPhone app from the U.S. Department of Defense. The app serves as a digital news and information source for those that like to keep up to date on the army's movements in the Middle East, Europe and Africa, with the app also focusing its attention inside the army covering aspects such as Human Interests, Community relations, Health and Science and Technology. Taking information from their official site, the app also offers a tile-based strategy game to keep those brain cells ticking, the ability to view the latest news videos, provides detailed weapon and vehicle fact files and offers the ability to directly download and listen to US military podcasts.
As well as offering all of this functionality though, the app also serves as an e-reader for the "Soldier Magazine," a medium to view a selection of high-res photos of the Army's recent missions and of course the ability to find your nearest US Army recruiter. Found something you want to share with another? The app also has the usual sharing options, including the ability to post a new story or video to Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the US Army's movements on both Twitter and Facebook, right within the app.
In general, the apps UI is nothing new, with the app offering five tabs along the bottom and providing various list veiws to navigate the app effectively. However, one part did catch my eye. When viewing an article in-app you'll see that they've implemented this 'slider' type view. Basically, this means you can view the image relating to the story, and then slide this panel up to reveal the entire story in a scrollable view. It's kind of nice .. I've never seen that before.
Anyways, with the app being FREE, it's definitely worth checking out, especially if you have a keen interest in, or serve for the US Army. Now you can keep up-to-date with the goings on around you, right from your iPhone or iPod touch.
