Readly Flipboard vs vs vs Readbug Apple News

When it comes to entertainment and information, we tend to like the model for all you can eat: if it comes to streaming music on Spotify or watch shows on Netflix, more and more of us expect to get everything for a flat fee. Can that work for other types of content as well as magazines and newspapers? Readbug readly and say yes, while Apple Flipboard and imminent News say "hmmm".

The four services are very different, but all have the same goal: to give something interesting to read. Readbug readly and take the model of Spotify Premium flat rate that gives you access to all its contents, but Apple News Flipboard and are ad-funded. Do any of them have the right to read? Let's find out.

Readly

We have reviewed readly back in 2014, and although we liked the application had some reservations. In particular, the catalog was not as great as we would like. The catalog is much, much bigger now, and includes almost all the magazines can be viewed on a kiosk platform including T3, Total Film, Marie Claire, FHM, Empire, Car, Top Gear, cooking magazines, journals, titles trashy supermarket, kids' comics and so on, with unlimited access for just £ 9.99 per month. It is available for iOS, Android, Windows and Kindle Fire.

Readly catalog includes not only current affairs, but also back issues and new items appear almost as soon as they arrive printing. The themes are perfect reproductions of the printed editions, so work best on screens / HD Retina. Expect to do a lot of zooming in and out if you are using a small device or low resolution.

One of our concerns was that last year readly did not have parental controls, so Kids' National Geographic could racked with trashy tabloids covered with hideous lines. That has changed and the application supports multiple accounts.

Readly is exceptional value. Magazines normally costs about five pounds per copy, if you read only three titles a month you're saving cash. We put our money where our mouths are with this: we are happy subscribers using our own money, not an account of PR-provided. In a Retina iPad or similar tablet Android is a great way to read magazines.

Readbug

If readly it is a supermarket magazine, iOS Readbug only is your local indie emporium filled with niche titles around the world may not even have heard of using an expert telling you about the good things. The picture is perfectly reproduced, but the text is done separately, so it is much easier on the eyes readly, and there is a daily show best interesting content, hand-picked. Digital text is not always perfect - the font is a bit hit and we would have liked the option of specifying our own fonts and sizes - but Readbug does a great job of preserving print layouts (and magazine ads) . Readbug uses algorithms to analyze what you read and help find related content also.

As readly, Readbug is £ 9.99 per month, and like readly access to back issues and current is obtained. And like readly, Readbug is excellent value for money - with an important caveat, and that is that your catalog is relatively small and definitely will not appeal to everyone. The catalog currently contains 37 titles including Stunned, another magazine, Under The Radar, Sight & Sound, Little White Lies and things and ink. It is very beautiful and a joy to use, but if your tastes are firmly mainstream is not the app for you.

Flipboard

Flipboard is a strange thing, is partly an RSS feed reader good-looking, in part, a place to share the things that interest and partly a recommendation engine powered by social media. This shows that the content of the sites that you have chosen as favorite Flipboard magazine and other users (if desired) and can also make the content of your Facebook and Twitter, creating what in theory should be the perfect magazine .

Flipboard is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, Windows Phone and (since February 2015) online in your web browser. Instead of charging a subscription fee, Flipboard pay their way with ads.

Flipboard looks good (although we prefer to rival app Zite you bought last year and whose recommendation system is now part of Flipboard), but its success depends largely on that: if you wisely choose their interests, follow good magazines Flipboard created by the user and do not connect Facebook if you like a lot of pages of businesses then have a much better experience.

The Flipboard app in iOS has just been updated to be more social. Creators of the magazine readers can ask questions, comment on stories that link, add images or requesting further involved. If you prefer reading as a passive activity that will not be of much interest, but it is great if you want to share what you see online.

Apple News

Apple news is a bit of a mystery for now. We know that it will be ad-funded, we know it's going to be around RSS news, and we know that human curation will be a key part of it, because Apple is busy hiring journalists and editors. But until you actually launched in the autumn of 2015, we do not know if it's any good.

We know that some of the partners who have already registered, a list of Wired, ESPN, The Guardian and the Atlantic, but it is unclear if can add your own feeds to the application or if it is limited to the content of select Apple for you. The demo certainly looks good, but so did the demo original iPhone - and we know now that Steve Jobs's phone was barely functional fussed over.

News could be the death of Flipboard and the future of newspapers. On the other hand, it might just be another Ping. We will know in the fall.