The giant search portal in miniature
Yahoo! for iOS is a news browser app that provides news and connects to the larger Yahoo! network. The Yahoo! app uses Summly technology to deliver short news summaries.
This news feed can be personalized further by toggling on and off related topics found at the end of articles. There is also plenty of social integration such as importing your Facebook likes into favored news topics or sharing stories using Mail. Both of these do require signing in to a Yahoo! ID, though. Lastly, you can use the app to search the web or browse for videos from YouTube and other sites.
What it does
The main feature of the mobile app is the Yahoo! News feed. The feed can include stories from sources such as Reuters, Access Hollywood, ABC, Healthy Living, and more. Each story includes the title, source, a link to read more, and a drop down menu to dislike or share (via Mail, Facebook, or Bluetooth services). The dislike option will allow you dislike topics or remove stories from your feed. Many stories also include a summary provided by Yahoo! and a related image from the article. In many cases a stock image is provided, which can be confusing when it has nothing to do with the headline.
Tapping on the "Read more" option will take you to the full article. This often includes an image or video at the top, the news source, and when the story was posted. Related topics show up at the bottom of the article. If you’re using a Yahoo ID, you can either add topics as favorites or remove them from your feed.
A slight annoyance is that if you scroll too far down, you will be taken to the next related story without a way to quickly return to the previous story. Thankfully the page will snap slowly during this, allowing you to easily cancel the motion.
Customize your experience
The mobile Yahoo! app has many great options for customization. You can disable the visual story feed if you become tired of it. This will cause stories to appear in a simple list with just the headline, source, and possibly an icon sized image.
If you don’t want to see every story you can select a specific section of articles ranging from business, politics, technology, and many others. The most impressive feature of Yahoo! is personalizing your news feed. In the topics preferences menu you can change which topics you’ve already picked as “My topics” or add them to “Removed topics”. Lastly, you can sync your Facebook likes and interests with the Yahoo! app which imports them into your topic lists. This feature is very convenient and will allow faster customization than having to choose individual topics.
Conclusion
The Yahoo! for iOS app has a great set of customizable features. If you’re displeased with the visual summaries you can quickly turn them off while still retaining core information. If you really don’t care for the featured news stories, the ability to easily import Facebook likes and interests will make a truly personal news feed. Better yet, your favorite stories can easily be shared across social networks or other apps.
Despite some minor interface issues, Yahoo! for iOS offers an excellent way to check the latest news.
Changes
Personalized stories based on your interests Beautiful article pages Endless visual stream of stories Summaries by Yahoo! Ability to select topics you want more stories about Revamped web search experience
