The Early Edition

CNET Editors' note: The "Download Now" link directs you to the iTunes App Store, where you must continue the download process. You must have iTunes installed in order to open the link, and you must have an active iTunes account to download the application. This download may not be available in some countries.

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on June 18, 2010

Editors' take: In a nutshell, The Early Edition aggregates your favorites news sources and presents them in an attractive, familiar-looking newspaper format. It's what happens when high-tech meets old school.

The app comes with about a dozen news feeds already configured. The default All Feeds view generates your "newspaper" from all these sources, though you can tap any one of them to view just that source.

As with actual newspaper apps, tapping any story brings it to the fore. However, if the story includes a "read more" page break, you'll get only the first portion. You can tap through to read the entire article, but that takes you to an embedded browser view of the actual Web page, thus killing the newspaper "feel" of the experience.

That's a minor gripe. A bigger one is with The Early Edition's method for adding feeds: You have to enter each RSS link manually. There's no search option, and no way to import feeds from another reader. Plus, the app isn't smart enough to ferret out a site's feed if you enter just its URL (like, say, www.iphoneatlas.com). Consequently, adding feeds is a major pain. At best, you have to look them up in Safari, then copy and paste them into The Early Edition. But if you're dealing with a site that doesn't have a copyable RSS feed, you'll have to hit your PC, find the proper link, then type it in manually. Bleh.

Fortunately, all that's soon to change. The next release, The Early Edition 1.1, will let you import from both Google Reader and OPML sources. Also, the app will "discover" the proper feed when you enter a site's URL. Another upcoming feature: the option of organizing your feeds into groups.

Currently, The Early Edition offers the single best RSS-reading experience on the iPad to date. It's well worth the $4.99 price of admission.

Publisher's Description

From Glasshouse Apps:

Your own personal daily newspaper is ready for delivery. The Early Edition takes the news sources that you enjoy (via their RSS feeds) and presents their content in a format which is familiar, stylish and intuitive.You can import feeds from Google Reader or OPML file, discover feed URLs by entering web links and even categorize your news feeds into sections, just like a traditional newspaper!Each time you collect news, articles from your source list are collected and assembled into a daily edition and stored in Archives for later reference.With The Early Edition you can skim through pages of article teasers or tap a headline to view the article in full screen. And if you want to share a story, the action button provides a host of options like Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, Read It Later, Delicious and Email.If you're someone who checks the news throughout the day, tapping the Fetch button will collect new stories since your last fetch and add them to the front of the paper. Or a long tap on a single feed or section will do an isolated fetch to save you some time.You can filter articles in a number of ways, including: Last fetch Today All dates Previous editionsThe Early Edition really takes advantage of the unique platform that the iPad provides and seamlessly combines what's great about print with what's great about the web.News sources can be gathered from: Websites Blogs Twitter Forums Pretty much anywhere you see an RSS link or symbol onlineA big thanks to everyone who has given us feedback and helped us improve and enhance this app. We've got some exciting plans that we'll be implementing over time so please stay tuned! CONNECT WITH US Website: www.glasshouseapps.comTwitter: @glasshouseapps

What's new in this version: iOS 5 compatibility