With the Web eventually came gobs of written material and sifting through it has become a chore to find the good information. Sure, using RSS feed readers is nice, but they’re sometimes clunky and take time to curate and setup. Nick D’Aloisio, a 16-year-old kid from London, might have an answer in his new app called Summly. The app works to simplify the way people browse and search the web by automatically summarizing search results, webpages and news articles.

The interface seems easy enough in that the user simply enters a search term or enters a URL and the app automatically provides the top information from the source in a bulleted list as well as the link to the full article. And Summly seems to be onto something as researchers from MIT tested the company’s patent pending summarization technology and found that it indeed was accurate in providing precise results. Best of all, it can produce results in any language, but is optimized in English, French, German, Dutch and a few more. The app is available now on the App Store for free.

[ via Gigaom ]

There are many out there who believe that the current mobile explosion will save the dying news industry. Newspaper and magazine publishers have been loving Apple’s Newsstand App for the increased visibility it gives their content. Now Google has released a rival, more Flipboard-esque, mobile reader of their own, Google Currents.

Google Currents offers optimized, magazine-style versions of articles from Forbes, TechCrunch, Saveur, Popular Science, Good, 500px, Fast Company and more. Google Reader subscriptions are also used to provide users content from the blogs and feeds they follow. Popular, trending stories are collected from all of these sources and given special placement with photos, slideshows, videos, live-maps and social streams intact.

Users can also save articles for “high speed offline reading”, share them, and sync them across all of their devices. Content scales to fit whatever sized screen a phone or tablet may have. Google Currents is available now for free and is compatible with iPhones and iPads.

Jack in the Box (the social media blog, not the blacklisted burger joint) has released their own iPhone app, designed to cram everything from the website into a more iOS-friendly package, even including their Facebook and Youtube feeds. Ten of the tech industry’s biggest websites are featured, and funneling their news feeds through the tiny clown head in a box is as simple as a few quick taps. Setting it all up takes a minute, at most.

From there it’s a simple matter of checking-in with Jack every once in a while. The two newest articles appear in a speech bubble over the tiny toy’s head, and once something good pops up a tap is all that’s needed to check it out. Of course, the tiny bubble can also be expanded to make browsing the list easier. Searching through the plethora of news stories is all done using an in-app browser with a handy “tab left/right” function that makes jumping from news item to news item a breeze. Simply tap the right arrow and it loads the next news item.

And what if it’s a slow news day? Well then there’s an entire history of social media to read up on, of course. Hidden under the not-so-hidden Evolution tab is a tree that chronicles the growth of digital and social media, which itself contains a fairly extensive encyclopedia of terminology to help out the less tech-savvy. Not sure what the word “aggregator” means? Tap it and get the definition. It doesn’t do much to help with news-gathering, but it’s still a nice feature to have for anyone who isn’t entirely up to date on networking sites such as Twitter and the like.

Sure, information-gathering isn’t a new concept for the App Store., but that doesn’t make AppJack any less handy to have around. It puts the content of ten major tech sites in one convenient place, and does so for the low low price of absolutely nothing. Not a bad deal, eh?

I’m a news junkie. I read various news sites and blog posts for hours a day. And all of it is read on my iPad or iPhone. This week’s Favorite Four are apps for people who love to read news. Lined up are two RSS readers, a personalized magazine, and a must-have app for anyone who reads news online.

Reeder
I’ll start with the RSS readers. Reeder (available on both the iPad and iPhone) is one of the more popular RSS readers. The user simply enters their GoogleReader account (which is basically a requirement for anyone who uses RSS) and receives a simple interface that aggregates all desired news and blogs. Reeder is great for people who want a simple RSS interface.

Pulse
My RSS reader of choice is Pulse (iPad only). Pulse presents RSS feeds in a five page format (organized in any way the user chooses). The feeds are arranged in a way that only shows a few feeds at a time with only a few posts for each of those feeds. Thumbnails of pictures on each post are shown if available. The Pulse interface is great and is second only to Flipboard (which is more geared toward Twitter and Facebook than news reading).

Zite
Zite (iPad only) is the place to go when all of the RSS feeds have been read and more news is craved. Enter some topics upon downloading Zite and it creates an awesome mix of personalized “Top Stories” on the homepage. After finishing the top stories, more news can be read by specifying which chosen topic to read on. Zite’s interface is also great looking.

Instapaper
The must-have app for anyone who reads news online is Instapaper (iPad and iPhone). Instapaper is a service, not just an app. A bookmarklet can be installed on any browser that allows any page to be saved for later. Instapaper downloads the text from that website (recognizing which text is the post) and saves it to be read offline at a later time. For someone with a WiFi only iPad, Instapaper is MANDATORY! Many news apps (like Pulse and Zite) have built-in Instapaper support that allows users to add posts to Instapaper without leaving the app. Boot up Instapaper, download some posts, and save them offline to read for later.

Taptu is a useful app for users who want to easily be able to keep an eye on multiple websites, such as their favorite blogs, Facebook, Twitter and more.

The app works by allowing you to subscribe to different RSS feeds and websites and then easily view those feeds within the same app. The advantage here is that you don’t have to switch between different RSS feed apps and social network apps. Instead, everything is easily accessible within Taptu.

There are quick view and full view options, allowing you to either get a quick view of the page and story or pull up the entire page in a full-screen mode.

One of the nice things about Taptu is the Facebook and Twitter integration. You can comment on your friend’s status updates, as well as like/dislike them. What’s more, you can Tweet and reply to your friend’s Tweets. Using the app, you also quickly share links you find on your favorite websites with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

There’s also integration with other social networking sites, like LinkedIn.

Best of all? Taptu is completely free.

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! Make sure you keep your teenagers locked in tonight, and don’t let them talk to anyone named Jason. With that warning out of the way, here’s your weekly dose of what’s new and interesting in the App Store.

The Incident – A severely polished and classy take on the sky is falling genre. Dodge wave after crazy wave of falling cars and major appliances, only to use those same items to climb ever upward to your destination, the stars.

Ninjump – Jump like a ninja (because that’s what you are) up through the levels, between buildings and over laundry. Attack various creatures in match three stealthiness for stupidly awesome score and height boosts. Brag to all your friends.

Ghosts N Goblins Gold Knights II – Capcom brings the sequel to its hardest game ever from the 1980s direct to your iPhone. You think you have what it takes? Well, do ya?

Times for iPad – Takes your RSS feeds and turns them into a lovely newspaper-style layout. If you long for the simpler days of flimsy newsprint paper and fingers stained with ink, this may be the app for you.

Slate Magazine – In a world of iPad apps that continually ask you to pay more for their content (I’m looking at YOU, Wired), Slate asks you to read their magazine, for free, on your iPad. What more can you ask for from their asking of you? Wait, what?

Dang, it’s August already. Time for Back To School Specials and the slow waning of summertime, at least in the northern hemisphere. Here’s another weekly dose of new releases onto the App store from the past week. Enjoy!

Osmos – Apple’s App of the week. Our first look here.
The #1 hit iPad game, now available for the iPhone, with full Retina display support! Enter the ambient world that GameAndPlayer called “a work of genius,” and IGN called “a beautiful, absorbing experience.” Osmos features elegant, physics-based gameplay, dreamlike visuals, and a beautiful electronic soundtrack. Your objective is to grow by absorbing other motes; propel yourself by ejecting matter behind you; but be wise: ejecting matter also shrinks you. Progress from serenely ambient levels into varied and challenging worlds.

Yertle The Turtle and The Big Brag – If you’re like me, you’ve grown up on Dr. Seuss books. They’re a cultural touchstone for many of us, reaching deep into our consciousness, ethics, and worldview. Now that I have kids of my own, it’s become important to me to pass along these treasures. I can do so, now, right on my iPad or iPhone. These apps will read to your child, either with a tap on each page to advance the story, or auto advancing through the whole book. They’ll also allow a more traditional book experience, with the “Read It Myself” option, for those big boys and girls in your life that are reading on their own.

Feeddler RSS Reader Pro for iPhone – Big Google Reader user? RSS fan? Feedler has quickly become the cream of the crop with their Universal App for the iPhone and iPad. They’ve just released an iPhone-only version, which comes in at 2.8 Mb, as compared to the 5.0 Mb of the Universal App. They’re also selling it for $.99 as a launch special, so if you want just an iPhone version to help your device save a bit of space, this is the one to grab. The devs continue to add great features to the app, like unread list filters, mark as read synchronization and the like.

Loopseque for iPad – As a musician, I’m always having fun with music in some way. This new app looks to be a cross between a music beat creator and a rhythm game. The developers have tried to make it as simple and intuitive as possible, which could lend itself to some great experiences for kids as well as adults. Two modes provide the interface for pattern creation, Big Wheel mode (for easy pattern creation) and Wheel Matrix mode for switching quickly between patterns. There’s even two team play modes, Tap and Sync. Save your patterns and load them for further editing or just listening.

LIFE Wonders of the World Photography Book – Retailing for $22 in the dead tree edition, this truly breathtaking photography coffee table book from the amazing photojournalists at LIFE magazine is priced for launch at a much lower $4.99. It’s for your iPad, and wow won’t you love paging through this. Wait, I mean wow won’t you love showing your iPad off with a total of 100 images of 50 wonders of the world. While it doesn’t look like you can set it up as a slideshow (yet), there is a clickable Table of Contents and a filmstrip tool for easier navigation.

Joining the swathe of apps updated for iPhone 4, Phantom Fish has enhanced its Byline newsreader app to make use of the iPhone 4’s Retina display. The app also takes advantage of multitasking in iOS4.

Byline takes news from sites listed in your Google Reader account and makes them available on your iPhone using their RSS feeds. The app allows users to view pages without an internet connection with its offline browsing feature and syncs with your Google Reader account so that your news is always up-to-date. The app is also compatible with Twitter, Instapaper and Read It Later.

Version 3.2 is available now on the App Store and brings high-resolution graphics for optimum viewing on the iPhone 4’s Retina Display and uses multitasking to complete syncing and caching of feeds in the background.

Byline is available for free with advertising or at $4.99 for the advertising-free version.

Aaaand…we’re back! Phew. Is it Friday already? Well, here are our weekly five app selections, culled from recent App Store releases. We’ve got plenty of new stuff this week, from feed readers to music games, so let’s get started!

Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero was demo’d at the WWDC keynote earlier this week, and made its official App Store debut shortly afterwards. Talk about big-name apps. The game costs $2.99 and comes with six songs, allowing you to unlock others via in-app purchase. (The included songs include hits like “We Are the Champions” by Queen and “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer.) It looks a lot like the Tap Tap Revenge and Rock Band games on the surface, but Guitar Hero introduces some new “swipe” and “strum” mechanics that add some new spice to the somewhat-stale tapping games. To put it succinctly, the game looks awesome—we’ll have a full review up later, of course.

Camera+
Camera+ comes from TapTapTap, makers of excellent, succinctly named apps like Convert and Voices. It includes tons of tools, ranging from digital zoom to an image stabilizer to a grid that helps you avoid crooked pictures. There are also plenty of scene modes (Beach, Night, Sunset, Backlit, etc) and filters (from a dirty Grunge effect to the more humorous So Emo). Toss in a digital flash effect, borders, and the ability to share photos across a variety of social networks, and Camera+ has just about every feature covered. The app itself is elegantly designed, and on the whole, Camera+ seems to be another worthy addition to the ranks of photo apps in the App Store.

HECTOR: Badge of Carnage
This is not your typical adventure game, folks. HECTOR proudly declares itself to be “half-decent,” but don’t let that fool you. This point-and-click adventure game stars Detective Inspector Hector and is cheekily irreverent. The dialogue is crude (not for the young’ins) and witty, and the game features genre mainstays like interactive locations and an expansive inventory. HECTOR certainly takes a different tack than most App Store games. Point-and-click fans should check it out.

Sudoku 2 Pro
Sudoku 2 Pro is (you guessed it!) the pro version of the popular Sudoku port. This version strips out the ads, tracks your “runs” (uninterrupted win streaks), auto-deletes solved notes, and allows you to hide the timer if you so wish…among other things, of course. Naturally, the features that make Sudoku 2 loved by so many App Store customers are still intact: ease-of-use, graphics, etc. If you’re looking for a good Sudoku game and don’t want your screen cluttered with ads, check out Sudoku 2 Pro.

Pulse News Reader
And finally, one for your iPad owners. Pulse News Reader was also demoed by Steve Jobs at the WWDC. Pulse is a clean and visual news reader for iPad. It imports up to 20 news sources and then creates an elegant mosaic of your news stories. Tapping on a block brings up the article in full. Just take a look at the picture…the app looks gorgeous, and even supports both landscape and portrait. Yum!

Reeder is one of the better looking and functioning Google Reader enabled RSS readers for the iPhone. We got word last week that the currently in-development iPad version is getting closer to release. In addition, the developer posted a few screen shots for us to take a look at.

From the looks of the preview screens, Reeder is going to be as gorgeous and innovative on the iPad as it is on the iPhone. We don’t know if Reeder for the iPad will be released as a separate app or as an Universal update to the iPhone version yet. Definitely one to keep an eye out for though.

 

Hit the jump for more screen shots from the upcoming Reeder for iPad.

Continue reading Sneak Peek at Reeder for the iPad »

Why isn’t there a native Facebook app for iPad yet? It’s not like the company hasn’t had the time or lacks the resources to update its existing iPhone app. For the time being, iPad users have to choose between blowing up the iPhone app to almost unusable dimensions for the larger screen or use the web app which, to be fair, is acceptable.

That said, it does seem strange that such an obvious iPad app hasn’t yet made its way to the App Store. Thank heavens then for the guys at sobees who have taken it upon themselves to put together a Facebook client for the iPad and, from our initial inspection, have done a brilliant job!

Blurring the lines between an RSS reader and Twitter client, sobees for Facebook manages all of the most commonly used sections of a Facebook account such as Status updates, links, images and video.

The interface is mapped out like the newspaper apps we’ve become accustomed to on the iPad with each section dedicated its own scrollable space. One cool feature is the Breaking News section that grabs a recent wall post or status update and positions it as a breaking news headline for your friend group. The Latest Hot Images section shows recently posted images and lets you swipe through them direct from the front page of the app.

While it takes a little time to load, the People section serves as an attractive who’s who of your Facebook friends, using their profile images as a wall of pictures. The Photos section takes a cue from the iPad’s own Photos app, grouping albums into Event-like galleries. Sadly, the pinch features in Apple’s native Photos app doesn’t feature here.

Events is one of the most handy of sobees for Facebook’s features, a simple calendar interface with small icons on each day to denote a birthday or other event. In most instances throughout the app, clicking on a friend’s profile picture brings up a neat contextual menu that offers a route direct to their profile.

Of course, sobees for Facebook isn’t just for consumption, it also allows you to update your Status, comment on videos and images and post on your friends walls. At the moment it seems you have to manually update via a small refresh button with no obvious option we’ve found to auto-refresh. That, however, is a small price to pay for an excellent app that, for the time being, is free and provides a beautiful alternative to Facebook’s web app on your iPad.