Yahoo News Digest review

Yahoo launched the Yahoo News Digest application for iOS four month ago. Today, the company launched the Android version of the application along with international versions.

Most news applications display an never ending stream of news to you that is updated regularly throughout the day. While that is great and all, it can also be overwhelming.

Yahoo tries to address this with its News Digest application which delivers news updates twice a day to the device only. And instead of making available hundreds of stories, it features a selection of eight to twelve news stories selected by an editorial team.

While that means that you have to trust the team to select the most important news for you, it is removing that overwhelming feeling at the same time.

All you need to do is open the app twice a day to read important news of the day.

When you run the app the top news of the current news cycle are displayed to you on a single screen. You get a single image at the top, and below that the headlines that have been selected by the editorial team.

News range from Politics and World news to Business, Sport and Arts. That's a lot of ground that the editorial team has to cover and it is only natural that it will miss news that you may consider important.

The default version of the application is designed for readers from the United States. You can switch the edition in the settings to Canada, United Kingdom or International.

Note that this does not change the language of the news, only the focus.

The app counts the news that you have read of the current cycle, and displays a "more news" link at the very bottom of the page. If you tap on it, a large selection of additional news headlines is displayed to you that you can browse and read using the application.

All articles open in the app itself and seem to be formatted for it specifically. The news are summarized by the editorial team, which means that there are only a couple of paragraphs to read. There are however links to the in depth article, images, and also social media information displayed here as well.

The in-depth articles open in the web browser and load the website the article was published on initially.

You can go back in time as well and read digests that you may have missed.

Closing Words

You spend a couple of minutes reading all summaries that the app provides you with. What I like about the approach is that you can get up to speed in regards to important news topics without spending a lot of time, but if you want to know more, you can follow up and open the in-depth articles or additional resources the app makes available.

An option to customize what is being presented to you would be useful on the other hand. If you are not interested in Sport, Art or Odd News, then those should not be displayed to you in first place.