San Francisco Chronicle for iPad
By Hearst Newspapers
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Description
(Note: This app requires iOS 4.2 or later)
The San Francisco Chronicle, reimagined for iPad. It's why you read the San Francisco Chronicle – smart news writing, award-winning photos and columnists, second-to-none Bay Area news coverage – totally redesigned for iPad.
San Francisco Chronicle for iPad features:
- A digital recreation of the San Francisco Chronicle: Articles, photos, sections delivered instantly to your iPad.
- Updates throughout the day: News happens all the time. The Chronicle for iPad is a "live edition" of the San Francisco newspaper – offering global, national and SF news updates.
- SFGate news & bloggers you love from SFGate.com: Celebrity scoop from The Daily Dish. Fab pop culture from Hot Topics. Breaking political news from Below the Beltway. All the best blogs, right alongside all the content from the newspaper.
- A carousel navigation: An entirely new way to discover the San Francisco Chronicle. Sections pop and flow, making breezing through stories a snap.
- Incredible 360 degree photo panoramas: The San Francisco Chronicle for iPad shows you San Francisco and the Bay Area in a whole new way. From center field at AT&T; Park, to the view in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, our panoramas bring a whole new dimension to the San Francisco Chronicle’s award-winning photos.
- Up-to-the-second Traffic and Weather sections: Need to bring an umbrella to work? Is the Bay Bridge backed up? Be prepared in a whole new way. The latest weather and traffic updates are only a tap away.
- Seven days of great content: Miss something from Sunday’s Datebook? Want to recheck that wine pairing or re-read the books section? No problem. The San Francisco Chronicle for iPad offers seven days of award-winning journalism at your fingertips.
Subscribing to the San Francisco Chronicle for iPad
Downloading the app is free. New users can use the app for 14 days free.
If you would like to subscribe, you can select monthly ($5.99) or annual ($59.99) subscription.
When purchasing through iTunes, your account will be charged at confirmation of purchase. Any unused portion of your free period will be forfeited at time of purchase.
Your subscription will auto-renew unless you turn this off 24-hours before the subscription runs out. You can turn off auto-renewal at any time from your iTunes account settings.
No cancellation of the current subscription is allowed during an active subscription period.
The fine print: Read our Privacy Policy at http://www.sfgate.com/pages/privacy/ and Terms of Service at http://www.sfgate.com/pages/termsandconditions/
What's New in Version 1.2
Every weekday, the San Francisco Chronicle for iPad is updated throughout the day -- including a comprehensive afternoon edition at 4 p.m. And be sure to check out our new 49ers section for all things Niners!
New in this release:
-- Search! Looking for a particular columnist? Or are you hunting for a particular article you read last week? Want to catch up on the latest Giants stories? Just tap the new "Search" button at the bottom of the app. Now all the Chronicle's great content is right at your fingertips.
-- Improved article navigation: Our last release changed how the app's "Back" button worked, and many users asked us to change it back. With this update, tapping on the section name at the top of an article will once again bring you back to the previous screen. Thanks for the feedback!
-- Further improvements to Download & Go.
-- General bug fixes and enhancements.
iPad Screenshots
Customer Reviews
Mixed bag!
I was all set to subscribe-- clean, smart interface with intuitive navigation and solid news coverage. The comic strips are a model for its kind--that alone almost makes it worth subscribing. They look like a real paper, long s rolling list-- and each with a tap can expand to readable size--along with a left-right scroll bar of previous editions of the strip. Brilliant!
So, what's the problem?
Ad banner across the bottom is a LARGE, WIDE STRIP running across the entire page. Takes up too much room.
The navigation bar area on the left side likewise takes up a huge chunk of real estate--and a bunch of it isn't needed at all.
The stories are mostly in narrow columns, not long--and, while this first gives the app a "real" newspaper look, one soon realizes that single column, wider stories work better and are more readable. They show up from time to time and the difference is striking.
The app now hangs on loading--sometimes crashing right away, sometimes just spinning wheel--on and on, but no paper. And this is not due to the limit of the free, demo version (only had it a few days), but programming problems.
Fix these things and you'll have a subscriber even though I live on the opposite coast!
Good and improving
Overall the app is beginning to more closely replicate the experience of a reading an actual newspaper and at the same time leveraging unique features facilitated by the iPad platform. That said I have a couple suggestions and one complaint.
Content parity. The iPad live version offers live updates not available in the print version (good) but it still doesn't 100% replicate all the content of the print version (not good).
Download & Go. It would be nice to have more granular control over the Download & Go feature. Such as the ability to choose what sections are included and perhaps the amount of content downloaded for each section (top stories vs all). Currently the only control is on the of amount of pictures and multimedia content included in the download. Additional granularity will be helpful in controlling the time necessary to complete the download when one is in a hurry or fast/reliable Internet connectivity is unavailable.
Consistent look and feel mechanics. My biggest complaint is around the mechanics when reading an article where the entire article is too big to fit on a single screen. In some cases you swipe up/down to navigate between pages. In other cases you swipe left/right. In some cases swiping left/right transitions you between articles. I don't really care one way or the other, just be consistent.
The Chron experience on my iPad
I've been a daily SF Chronicle reader for decades, so I had to get the app for those times when I'm out of town. What has surprised me is that when my iPad and the paper newspaper are sitting next to each other, I often choose to read today's edition electronically. I don't find the ads intrusive, and I like the navigation. The photographs are very high quality. This is the future of the newspaper business.
- Free
- Category: News
- Updated: Aug 22, 2011
- Current Version: 1.2
- 1.2
- Size: 7.2 MB
- Language: English
- Seller: Hearst Newspapers LLC
- © 2011 Hearst Newspapers, LLC
Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.
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