We told you yesterday that Ongo was on the way to the iPad, and now it's in the app store and I've had some time to play with it. Ongo is a joint venture by several newspaper companies to create a paid, ad-free news aggregator that is easy to use and will appeal to the news junkie.
After some hours using the app, I found it attractively designed and easy to use. You can see and share top stories from several publications like the New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post. The app doesn't cache much, so reading offline does not appear to be an option. You can save stories, called clippings, but once saved I could not retrieve them without a data connection. The app allows you to sort news by type, like U.S., or Arts and Entertainment, but there are no sections for tech (!) or even politics. It seems a glaring omission. You can certainly read stories on those subjects, but not sort them on your own.
All the news in Ongo is created by a staff of 5 editors, so you're not getting the full NYT or USA Today. The staff choose what will be available, which I found troubling. Also, when searching for 'Opinion' I only got material from the Washington Post. Worse yet, Hints from Heloise came up under the 'Opinion' heading, with tips on cleaning pewter. Sorry, but I don't think that was a good editorial choice. There is a search function, and a query for Steve Jobs brought up many stories none were relevant. They were just stories that mentioned someone named Steve and had the word 'jobs' in it. An Identical search in Google News worked perfectly.
Continue reading Ongo for iPad is a good start but far from a home run
Ongo for iPad is a good start but far from a home run originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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