[Tools and Resources] Summly - Summly Limited

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Summly

Name: Summly (summly.com)
Company: Summly Limited
Price: Free (Apple App Store) Don't know if it is available on other devices

Intro:
I was lying bed last night browsing the app store when I came across the top free charts and saw this App was sitting somewhere around number 4. Now I usually check the first, lets say 10, top free apps anyway to see if anything good has popped up - and after looking through the description this certainly did. So I pressed download, typed in my Apple ID password and listened to One Day Like This by Elbow until it has finished installing.

In a nutshell the app gathers news from a multitude of sources and summarises then into shorter, more-to-the-point, articles as well as offering a more detailed summary if a particular point interest you. Alongside that is the option to go to the page where the sources was gathered to get the full article, which is opened up in the app so you never have to leave. Oh and it was made by a teenager!

The Review:
Opening it up I was greeted by screen similar to this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Nice looking and modern.

And then taken through a tutorial which promptly showed me the intuitive motion gestures that this app uses, ranging from pinching outwards to spinning sharing options. I was going to go through them but then realised this is a review not a guide so instead I'll link you to the page provided on their website.

The home screen is a series of boxes that categorize, broadly, news topic. For example you can have Politics, Headlines, The Wall Street Journal etc. What is great about this is there are pre-made categories which show up in blue, but you can also go into the settings and type in a topic you want to read about and a green box appears providing you with info for that particular topic. Whilst I haven't explored this feature fully sadly nothing came up when I typed in "total war"! You can also move the categorises around so the most important are on top - so in my case I need to move Fashion and Style down to the bottom.

You can swipe this boxes to update or delete them, press on the right side for a overview of the current topics or just click on them to be taken the newest story. From there you swipe to see different stories and can pinch, double click, hold, swipe upwards and downwards to do a load of different things from sharing options to viewing a more detailed summary. One thing that does bother me is that when you go back to the home page when you next click on a box you are taken back to the beginning not to where you left off - oh and I'd suggest turning push notifications off, they can quickly build up!

So far I haven't experienced that many bugs etc. Although this morning it did freeze for a bit, nothing major just a close down app and relaunch and since then I haven't had anything else. The touch controls are pretty fluid and work well, although it jitters slightly sometimes when scrolling up and down on the home screen. I have noticed that, for example in the UK News category a lot of stuff is sourced from The Guardian - in the future having a more varied selection of sources would be a bonus.

The news itself is pretty good, and everything is updated pretty quickly - but this is speaking from having it less then 24 hours so I'll try and keep you posted. I like having the option to visit the source page in-app instead of having to go through Safari, and you can quickly return to the page you were reviewing when done. Although if you read the more detailed summary then viewing the page as well isn't really needed, but it is an option in any case. There is also and option to save stories for later, but I haven't tried that out yet.

Spoiler for On the phone: 

What it looks like - even made it to the front page!

Spoiler for The home screen: 

The boxes I've been going on about - there are subtle pictures on each one.

Spoiler for Viewing the overview: 

This is what you see when viewing what stories are available for that category.

Spoiler for Refreshing and reloading: 

Swipe right to update each box, although when you launch it they all update anyway.

Spoiler for The summary and sharing: 

This is a sample summary, and the sharing options that appear when you hold down. I haven't tested them out yet so no comment if they work.

Pros:
-Clean, simple and effective UI
It really is stylish in my opinion, and definitely a one of the kind... at the moment anyway

-Intuitive controls
Some have said the touch gestures are not too good, but I personally find them great and when you've mastered what does what you can quickly find your way around no bother

-Great Concept
The concept itself is genius, and I hate having to waffle through all the BS so having a quick summary suits me perfectly, and if a story does interest me then I can view it more in depth

-Its free
For what it is everyone should really be downloading it

-No adverts
Enough said

Cons:
-More sources needed
Having more sources proving info can only be a good thing, maybe on option to view the same story from different sources in a future update

-The occasional bug
And I really mean infrequent, a few freezes and jitters but no full blown crash down as of yet

-Repeated stories
I know I said having the option to have the same stories from different sources would be nice, but when they repeat the same thing it really isn't

-Messy summaries
I've noticed on the odd occasions that the summary is a bit mishap, starting with "and" for example. Whilst not a major thing could be done with getting sorted out.

Conclusion:
All in all this so far is the best app I've downloaded in ages... and I've only had for a day. I strong suggest you get this before they either start charging for it or we all discover some underlying problem which stops us form using it! A the time of writing it is Number 1 in the UK App Store, that has to speak for its self.

4 out 5 from me.

[Jaketh]

I heard about this app from the BBC, seems alot like Google Currents on my android device. Good review ill have to check and see if it's on android and try it out if it is.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Thanks, and as of this evening it is still going all well. I'm not sure if it is available on Android or not and if you could let me know if it is or isn't that be great.

[Jaketh]

It does not appear to be so, IOS always gets the treatment first for some reason.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Yeah, but annoyingly for it all to work properly you need to own every other Apple product!

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Okay - update.

After a few more days the initial awe has worn off, and I am starting to see what some people have been saying... sadly mainly negatives as well.

-repeated stories
I know I said having the option to have the same stories from different sources would be nice, but when they repeat the same thing it really isn't

-messy summary
I've noticed on the odd occasions that the summary is a bit mishap, starting with "and" for example. Whilst not a major thing could be done with getting sorted out.

There was one more but I can't remember. Now onto some pros:

-no adverts
Enough said

-the UI is still amazing
It really is

Now a 4/5 from me.