Microsoft News Pro App Lands On Android

Android users can now download Microsoft's News Pro app, joining the iOS users who got access to it awhile ago. With the app, users can sign in using one of four methods (email, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook) to view personalized news from all sorts of categories, as well as sign up for an email digest. In addition to delivering a variety of news based on personalized interests, the app also enables users to search for specific news items or categories.

There's no shortage of news aggregating apps in the Play Store, so any new contenders need a good way to stand out. At first glance, News Pro doesn't appear to offer any of those outstanding features...in fact, it appears to be lacking in some ways, with no readily apparent way to manually tailor your news experience. However, the app does offer some features that will certainly appeal to some users, including the ability to use "Speedy View."

When you tap a news article and it opens, a big button appears at the bottom with a lightning bolt and the "speedy view" option — click it and you'll get the picture- and ad-free version of the article, which loads faster and is easier to read.

As well, tapping the "Share" icon obviously gives you the ability to share, but to also leave a comment on the article, or to annotate it. When you choose to annotate it, you're basically given a screenshot onto which you can draw with differently colored lines of varying width; you can, for example, highlight or circle a sentence. It appears that annotated articles can only be shared on Facebook and Twitter, however.

SOURCE: MSPowerUser