Times Reader 2.0 - the Newspaper Reloaded

On May 12th The New York Times launched Times Reader 2.0 ("TR2"), a cross-OS-platform newspaper reader powered by something called Adobe AIR, a still relatively new product on the Web 2.0 scene. Over Memorial Day weekend I grabbed a cup of coffee, kicked up my heels, downloaded the 2.5MB file and signed up. My skepticism quickly melted away.

Don’t be fooled by the understated UI when TR2 first launches.  You’ll see a listing of newspaper sections on the left and content for the first page on the right. It’s cleaner than a Web page (no animated banners or ad overlays to close) but you would be excused if at this point you yawned.  Things will start to come into focus once you start browsing.

Speed is the first thing that made me sit upright as I flipped through the articles.  There’s no waiting for pages to load. That’s because all the content loads when you first launch TR2. I powered up and went for a refill.  And that means you can read the entire paper offline. Pretty cool for commuters or those running from place to place who can’t find a wireless network signal or live port (never mind that business of bringing your own cable). By the way, cutting the tether to the Internet yet creating a rich offline experience is made possible by Adobe Air (curious given its name).

I rediscovered browsing with a feature that goes by the same name. TR2 lays out each newspaper page as a readable tile (not just a thumbnail) allowing you to browse up/down through sections or left/right within the section.It’s similar to the new Palm Pre “activity cards” analogy that allows you to flip through applications quickly.  With the Times Reader, scanning through an entire paper is faster than flipping through the broadsheets.

There’s peace of mind that comes with the Reader in knowing where you are. It’s smart enough to let you read through a 4 page article and then with 1 click take you back to the listing of articles that you started from. You don’t have to click back 4 times to ensure you’ll get back to where you started.  Flipping through images is in-context, you won’t leave the article.

Your eyes will thank you. This is thanks to something called Text Layout Framework that gives you print quality rendering and resizing which not only addresses the past limitations of text in Flash but goes well beyond CSS and HTML. You don’t have to fiddle around with browser text zooming anymore which in any case was hardly used because of the layout distortion it caused on a Web page.

Your forefinger will thank you too.  You can forget about the mouse, at least while browsing the TR2.  I use a ThinkPad which conveniently locates up/down and left/right keys on the bottom right – and it’s even easier with a tablet PC as my wife reminded me. That’s all you’ll need to see those pages whosh by. Go ahead, give the pinkie some exercise at the keyboard.

But what about the latest news? The Times Reader has thought of that too. When you’re connected to the Internet, the reader automatically fetches new content – including videos.  In fact you can set the frequency at which you want to fetch updates.

The blazing fast performance, easy-on-eyes fonts and layout, seamless video playback, regular updates and 7-day archive make the Times Reader a fantastic way to read The New York Times on your computer. TR2 is a significant improvement over reading the paper on the Web which is important given that it’s a subscription product. And while it’s not for those that only care about headlines, The New York Times has never really been for the short attention span crowd.

All this and your carbon footprint is zero. With Times Reader 2.0, say sayonara to taking your beloved print edition to the recycling curb.

 

Comments

[shubhinetwork]

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I don’t know how much the real world cares, which is one reason I’m late to this, but the newspaper world has been abuzz about an actual fight that broke out in The Washington Post’s newsroom a few days ago. The subject was a “charticle,” a kind of hybrid story/graphic (and we’ll leave the merits of that genre for another day) that two reporters had put together for the Post’s Style section. The Style editor, Henry Allen, told the reporters it sucked. Actually, according to one source, he called it the “second-worst piece I’ve ever had handed to me in 43 years.” (What was the worst? Patience, dear reader; we’ll get to that.
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