Zite - Your Intelligent News Hub

This morning, I found this beautiful self customized newspaper that can definitely rival against Flipboard, the app that I gave high remark on the previous app review. To begin with, Zite is intelligent, as it doesn't just ask you sign up a new account before letting you access the features, instead, Zite allows you to have fun at your first launch. When you first open to app, Zite prompts you to sign in with your favourite social network site, and I choose to sign in with Twitter. It doesn't really annoy you by asking you to fill in any personal data, it just sign in right away. Through your social network account, the app tries to identify your favourite topics and genres, and sort the topic out for you. But, you don't have to worry about not being able to select your own choice of news, as it will still require you to select your preferable news genres from the elegantly designed genre list. Of course, you can select multiple genres. If you dislike the suggestions of topics on the list, you can type in your preferable topic and Zite will search and compile the articles that you like and present them by creating a new section. After setting things up, you can tap on the "Done" button and start reading.

Unlike Flipboard which arrange your news in tiles, with the title of the Publisher like Daily Beast on each tiles, Zite organizes your news updates in a page called "Top Stories", in a more casual manner, more similar to newspaper layout. There are titles of news with short descriptions and graphics under each title for your reference, and if you are interested in that news, you tap on it and it will display the full content, in the form of "reader" (same concept as the one in Safari browser). It automatically eliminates all distractions like ads and pop ups, leaving only the news content and pictures arranged neatly on the display. Other part of your app will also be dimmed, letting you concentrate on your reading. It also has extra customizable features like letting you adjust your font size and font type. Though the choices of font size and type are limited, I really appreciate the availability of this feature. If you prefer to read it on web, you can also tap on the web button which link you to the site of the article you are reading. I personally like the sharing options available for each article, which allows me to share the article I read on sites like facebook, Instapaper, LinkedIn, Twitter, Evernote, delicious, etc. You can also email the article to your friends and family. The sharing is instant, with less than 3 clicks. Remember I used "intelligent" to describe this app? It really is! Beside the article you read, there is a sidebar that ask you whether you like the article, and give you intelligent suggestions on related topics that you might be interested on. You can also request for more articles from the same source, for instance, if you like the article from Gizmodo, you can ask Zite to give ou more on Gizmodo. Smart isn't it?

Verdict: I like the ease of access and physical presentation of Zite, and also the Sections bar which lead you straight to the articles of your desired topic. I also like the iOS like swipe gesture while navigating through the articles. The dots below that shows the number of pages available is also very comforting. The "reader" style of displaying the news is highly encouraged, but I do hope to see more customizations options like offering more fonts and font sizes. Besides that, I also hope they allow using facebook to sign in to Zite, as many users don't have Twitter, Google Reader, delicious, and Read It Later accounts.