In April, Yahoo redesigned its news-focused iOS app to emphasize personalization, photos, and article summaries generated by Summly. With iOS 7 landing today, the company is adding a new set of features to the app, while refining the design to make it feel lighter and more fluid.
Yahoo for iOS update includes push notifications, article saving, and cinemagraphs
is the editor of the Platformer newsletter and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast.
The stream of news has an updated look, with lighter fonts and a design that emphasizes photos for every story. A handful of stories each day will include cinemagraphs, subtly animating photos in the app to make articles feel more lively. Perhaps the last major news app not to have push notifications for breaking news, Yahoo is finally getting them with today’s update.
Yahoo is finally getting push notifications for breaking news
If you’re short on time when you check the app, you can now save articles to read later inside the app, Pocket-style. For now the saving feature is limited to the app, but within a few days, you’ll be able to save articles on Yahoo.com as well. Saved articles will synchronize across devices, and they’re also stored locally for offline reading.
Yahoo won’t say how many people use the app, but it has been downloaded millions of times on Android alone. Fernando Delgado, the company’s senior director of product management for mobile products, says daily active users have grown by 50 percent since the redesign four months ago. The app’s personalization strategy, which combines editorial curation with machine learning, are drawing users back more frequently, he says.
The update is out on iOS today; an Android version is in the works.
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