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by Joel Mathis , Macworld.com The best news aggregation apps make it very easy for you to assemble your favorite socialnetworks and news sources into one attractive package. ChannelCaster a free offering for both the iPhone and iPad from OneLouder doesn t quite measure up to that standard. At least, not yet. Tiles Tell the Tale: Instead of the magazine-style layout of otherpersonalized news aggregators, ChannelCaster adopts a tiled lookmore reminiscent of the Windows Phone interface. ChannelCaster avoids the magazine-style display of headline andstories that was popularized by Flipboard and Zite , and it also eschews the grid-style format favored by many otheraggregation apps, like Pulse . Instead, ChannelCaster utilizes an elegant third option: A tiledlayout reminiscent especially in its iPhone version of theWindows Phone user interface. Yes, that s a good thing. Tap one of those tiles, though, and the layout becomes much lessattractive. You can pull feeds from Twitter, Facebook, GoogleReader, and a variety of other sources to customize yourChannelCaster experience. Unless you re importing a full RSSfeed, however, the effect is ungainly: In the story view, you seethe text and URL link of a Twitter or Facebook status at the top ofthe page; underneath that is a headline and maybe some summarytext; beneath that is a box to tap if you want to read the wholearticle it takes you to the full web version. Incomplete Reports: ChannelCaster s story page can be a littleungainly, with a headline, some summary text and a box to tap ifyou want to see the full version of an article. All of this works, but it s ugly, and thus not very enticing touse. Another issue: While a recent update to ChannelCaster seemed toimprove the app s overall speed, the app still doesn t alwaysfeel responsive sometimes it freezes, other times you have to tapan item twice or three times before it works. This tendency isproblematic in both the iPhone and iPad versions of the app, butespecially noticeable in the former you have to scroll more toread your chosen stories, but too often find yourself waiting forthe scroll function to work. Finally, while you can sign up for a single account to use the appacross both your iPhone and iPad, not all the settings transferbetween devices. You must individually sign into Facebook andTwitter on both. I found that inconvenient, though some users mightfind it to be an advantageous security measure. On the surface, ChannelCaster looks great. Dig a little andthere s plenty of room for improvement and a substantialimprovement has been made. The version 1.2 update released at theend of April eliminated many of my more substantial complaintsabout the app. ChannelCaster now makes it much easier to customizeyour content than before. The app hasn t quite arrived in the toptier of news aggregators, but that day may not be far off. [ Joel Mathis is a writer in Philadelphia. ]. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as RGB LED Panel Light Manufacturer , High Power LED Flood Lights Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Dimmable LED Panel Light.
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