REVIEW: A6.Times - News with a twist

Posted by: Brandon Steili on Aug 27 2006

A6.Times first impressions

Well first let me say that I’m exactly what A6.Times is looking for in a customer. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about how RSS/XML etc. is all supposed to work, how to code it, and things of that nature. Sure I’m a techie, and I have every intention of figuring the stuff out, but I’m also a sys admin, so finding the time to figure it all out is a whole different ball of wax. A6.Times is designed for folks like me and I quote “… you won’t need to understand those concepts to start using A6.Times. As long as you know how to use a regular newspaper, you’ll be OK.”  So according to this I should be good to go.

You have to know enough to install 2 packages - the .net Compact Framework v2. and the A6.Times package itself. So, do a quick search and find the version of CF 2.1 from Microsoft and install the .cab file - reason why? The 2.1 version is about 5MB and it can be installed to your storage card instead of to the BIS like the older verisons. Next go the A6.Times website and download the .cab file for the software. Installing the .cab directly to the device will let you bypass the requirement to update the Compact Framework on your desktop. I know working from cab files is a bit of a pain in the butt, however A6.Times doesn’t include the CF redistributable package and the installer was wanting to update the framework on my desktop. Frankly, I don’t want to update anything I don’t need to, and I definitely don’t understand why a pocket pc application feels the need to touch my desktop.

Alright after all that we should be good to go. However, firing up A6.Times for the first time and the first "Uh Oh" presented itself. Where do I want to install the news database?! Well, while slightly shocking to see I have to admit I was pleased to see it, since many of the other RSS products I have tried just choose the spot for you and if you want to change it you have to do so after the product is up and running (and has likely brought down data). My 8125 just can’t handle that kind of abuse. So, I chose where to install the database (MiniSD) and then the database had to initialize. Well, there went a good 3-5 minutes of my life. Yes it really did take that long. 

Finally, I’m brought to the “Front Page”. They start off with a nice introduction page for what the product does, and it was nice but unfortunately I clicked the D-Pad the wrong way and the page was gone. I have no idea where it went, and I didn’t get to read the whole thing. So much for learning by RTFM. This was the first run in with the navigation of the program… and definitely not the last. 

The Front Page

 

I love the layout for the pages, but even more than that I love the fact that the images are brought down with the news story (hint to other products!). The movement could be a little more intuitive however.  Here’s my problem - up, down and right - this is what caused me to lose the intro page. Maybe it’s just me but I naturally assumed if I want to read the rest of the article I would press down (just like I do with every other website I read), but in order to read the rest of the article you have to press right. Pressing down brings you to the next article in your news feed list.

Problem number 2, if the article doesn’t have a second page there’s really no way to know without pressing right, which wouldn’t be a big deal, but if there’s no second page you get taken to the section guide (and away from the news). So recommendation number one is if there’s no second page, not being able to move to the right would be a better choice as would having a small “cont.” on the bottom of the page if there is a second page. I want to stay on the front page, not get moved away from it… and many times throughout the use of the program I found myself at the section guide when I really didn’t want to be there.

Problem number 3, I have no idea what the source of the news is while I’m reading on the front page (you do however when you are in the section, see further down). Let’s be truthful, we all like to see “spoof” news, like the Onion or the Register. Unfortunately (see the first picture) you’ll notice the source of the article is not listed, so unless the author put it into the rss feed for each article you have no idea what site it’s from. News is news, but Al Jazzera news isn’t quite the same spin as BBC news spin, and I’d like to know which one is which while I look at the article. 

Problem 4 - I know what program I’m using … can we do away with the giant A6.Times banner at the top? Can we do something useful with that space? I don’t have a lot of real estate as it is on my Cingular 8125, and eating it up with a giant banner for the program name (which is a nice touch) is just too much space being wasted. I’d really like to see a way to turn this off and regain some of my page space. Now, with that said, the banner does change depending on the news feed type. So for instance the banner will have a Canadian flag behind it for news that comes from my Canada feeds section and a hard drive platter/head image if it’s from the technology feeds section. Again a nice touch, but I would still like to regain that space! Hopefully the devs can shrink up that banner since I really do like it being there, and replace some of that new space with a banner/text line for the source.

After the Front Page

Now that we’ve moved on from the front page and trust me here you will … we are brought to the Section Guide (see above). By clicking on a section you are taken to the specific area. I love the layout as it tells me very simply the source, the number of unread and the total number of articles. 

Clicking on one of the news sources will naturally take you into that specific source’s list of news. But what bothered me from here on out … was there was no way to take this specific section / source and set it to be read like you would on the front page.  Here’s what I mean … I’ve drilled down to Slashdot and the first article they had at the time of this writing. Notice how the screen just isn’t the same as the “Front Page” ?

 

That’s how it looks from here on out (unless the article has an image which will get included). Also be careful … the section I have highlighted in the screenshot (Title) will open Internet Explorer and try to load the page!!! That’s going to be a big problem for you folks that have bandwidth restrictions if you’re not careful. What ever happened to asking a user before you just open a new app and try to connect to the internet? Messing with this program I’ve downloaded about 4 MB just on my first trial and error!!! *And that’s with maybe half of the feeds I read on a daily basis. 

One other minor problem,  I can’t seem to reliably get the following URL to load properly (it accepts it, but never ads it to the list of sources). URL - http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss.xml. Entering the URLs is easy enough, simply go to Menu then Configure Newspaper and follow the steps, but I really don’t understand why I couldn’t display that feed. (To A6’s defense Newsbreak doesn’t do it right either. )

 

Finally … Get used to seeing the image below since updating doesn’t exactly move quickly - especially on Cingular’s data networks. Newsbreak would atleast still let you read while the feeds are updating. I hate waiting, and I really hate waiting while I could be doing other things. If A6 could fix one thing in this application to make it 100% more functional, it would be to allow you to continue using the program while it updates. 

 

 

Conclusion

At the end of the day it all boils down to one thing … does this application do what I want, the way I want? Yes and no. I love the front page feature; I just wish you could have that through every article just by clicking on the article. I think the navigation is a little counter intuitive and could be brought to be a little more friendly by simply noting if a page continues or if it doesn’t. They could better mark what a d-pad action is really going to do (note: they do have it, it’s just not that "intuitive") and finally they could allow me to get rid of the huge banner on the top of the “front page” feature. One more thing to love … the fact that they download the images!!! One more thing to dislike … Waiting for long periods while the application updates the feeds.

Will I buy it? I don’t know. I’ve got 14 days on the trial; I’ve got a lot to learn about the application and I already own Newsbreak. Time will tell, but I’ll say this - if you don’t own a good news aggregator A6.Times might just be the one you’ve been looking for. Its a solid application, and it’s got the one thing going for it that nobody else does - images brought down with the news for offline reading!!!

 Cost: $19.95 with FREE lifetime upgrades! 

Brandon (aka Netsyd)

 

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