Interesting For iPhone: Simple News

Nice new app by Mike Rundle: Interesting is a super-simple $0.99 aggregator of news for iPhone organized in four sections. Interesting collects new articles from a variety of sources and displays a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Tapping on an item opens an embedded web view, which has a toolbar for navigation, refresh, and sharing options. Sharing includes Pocket and Twitter integration, Copy Link, Open in Safari, and Mail Link. Interesting has four sections: Design & Technology; News & Politics; Entertainment & TV; and Sports. The built-in list of sources includes websites like The Next Web, Wired, SBNation, CNN, SPIN, and various sub-reddits.

Interesting has some great details. For instance, Mike has used the iOS 6 status bar tint in a way that’s not too bad, but that actually contributes to better identify sections visually: each section has a different title bar color, which consequently changes the color of the iOS status bar. I like the color choices. Further, tab bar icons have a nice animation when you tap on them, and I don’t mind the custom font and pull-to-refresh animation.

As Marco Arment learned with The Magazine, completely avoiding settings is a tricky decision. Interesting is very easy to use, but you can’t pick a different read later choice (only Pocket has native integration in the sharing menu and with tap & hold) and you can’t, say, set a different browser for opening links. I appreciate the simplicity; on the other hand, I wish the app had at least some options in the iOS Settings app.

As you know, I already use MacHash as an Apple news aggregator on my iOS devices. Interesting is a cool option for other kinds of news – TV is especially useful to me – and it’s only $0.99 on the App Store.