Times Reader -- NYT's Adobe AIR Reading Application

[mkrishnan]

Wired did a take on NYT's Times Reader.

I read the news today in a whole new way. And I’m betting you will too, soon.

Journalism’s grey lady, the New York Times just threw down her cane and sprinted to the forefront of online newspapers with the release of version two of the Times Reader — a downloadable application built on Adobe’s AIR framework.

The new version is a lightweight application takes advantage of Adobe’s expertise in print layout to dynamically re-size images and flow text depending on the size of your screen or how wide or tall you set the Reader window.

It’s clear from just a few minutes of playing with the app that readers will spend much of their newsreading time in the future in stand-alone apps, whether they be coded in Air, Microsoft’s Silverlight or Mozilla’s upcoming, open-source competitor Prism.

Right now, Adobe Air’s NYT Reader delivers elegantly.

Stories fall into comfortable columns, that feel familiar to newspaper readers. Photos jump out at you and since the application downloads the entire days news in the background, jumping to the next story (easily done with the right arrow key) is nearly instantaneous. Browsing the news via pictures is downright pleasant — no lag at all. Oh, and once the app has loaded the day’s news you can read the paper without a net connection— perfect for a commute.

In a way, the application is sort of a retropulsion of the App Store concept -- the app store demonstrated that specialized apps could deliver a superior experience to the web browser for getting some kinds of data while on the go. NYT's own application is one excellent example.

This, however, is a desktop application that runs in Adobe AIR on top of Windows, OS X, or Linux. It has a very simple installation via Flash and it looks lovely.

EDIT: Interestingly, in Windows XP, it can install itself onto a computer with administrative privileges, if Flash is already installed (but AIR is not). In Linux, in contrast, it required a sudo password. Have not tried it yet in OS X.

 

[ravenvii]

EDIT: Interestingly, in Windows XP, it can install itself onto a computer with administrative privileges, if Flash is already installed (but AIR is not). In Linux, in contrast, it required a sudo password. Have not tried it yet in OS X.

I just tried it. Interesting application and interesting idea. $3.50 a week is a little bit pricey, though (for full content access).

I wonder what the future of newspapers is. Printed newspapers are in serious trouble, as you probably know.

Oh, and installing it on OS X is like any other application - it will prompt you for your password.

 

[Abstract]

I don't really understand why I'd want to install this. I read the news just fine on my browser. Never had a problem with the format.

 

[mkrishnan]

Oh, and installing it on OS X is like any other application - it will prompt you for your password.

I wonder how it gets away with the zero-auth installation in Windows?

I didn't notice, in my defense, the idea that they wanted users to pay for it when I first saw it and tried it out.

I do think the experience is much richer than the web page -- it has a really great search engine, the dynamic reformatting is great, etc. But the web page isn't bad. I'm not sure that I'd pay for seeing articles in this format instead of in my browser.

I guess I was more interested in the idea of whether this was a test case of Adobe AIR actually bringing the small, independent apps idea from the phone to the desktop. I think in many cases it can provide a richer experience.

 

[mwxiao]

This is a great app. So much better than the first version when silverlight was used.

I love the format of newspaper with columns. I wish the subscription fee could have been a little lower.

 

[ravenvii]

Yeah, I knew AIR can bring some very nice applications since I used the Adobe Media Player. It's a very cool program, but with a limited use.

That's true with all the AIR applications I used - the potential is there, but there's no real killer app yet.