NYT App Takes All the News that's Fit to Print Offline

You would be hard pressed to find a more esteemed newspaper anywhere in the world than The New York Times. Since 1918, the NYT has won 98 Pulitzer Prizes, far more than any other U.S. newspaper. When the venerable newspaper released its free, ad-supported NYTimes app, it quickly found a receptive audience.

The NYTimes app downloads all the day's news in one shot, so you can read it offline. It also has a photo album. Click on an image and it, and the article it accompanies, will fill the screen. There's also a landscape mode and an edit option to configure your most frequently read topic areas.

This app is virtually identical to the AP Mobile News app AppCraver reviewed a few weeks back. It even looks the same.

There are few differences that mitigate in favor of the AP Mobile app. The first is that it provides news local to where you happen to be, which NYT does not. It has more news categories, which provides a greater level of personalization. The third, is that waiting for the NYT to download, sometimes feels like you're standing around for a bus that will never come. Download speed has been a complaint about the NYT's app since day one, and it despite updates, it's still slow.

AP Mobile loads all the day's news in one shot for offline reading too, but it just pops.

However, it is the NYT after all, and you'll be getting a level of reporting and analysis you won't find anywhere else. That is going to be worth the wait to many people.

I'll keep it on my iPhone with AP Mobile but I sure wish the "Grey Lady" (a name given to the newspaper when it was considered stuffy) would hurry things up.