NYTimes iPhone App Main Page

Being an avid news junkie and a fan of the New York Times, it was inevitable that I find the NYTimes iPhone app. I found the app a while ago and have been drafting a review.  From an accessibility point of view the app had little going for it. Since it was slow to load articles and hard to read, I did not use it often and procrastinated finishing the review. Then I checked my App Store for updates tonight and found a new version of the Times for the iPhone.

At first, I did not think much had changed besides a trendier color scheme. The font is small and difficult to make out. The app swivels, but the font stays the same. There is no zoom on the main page either. But the is where the similarities end. The first noticeable difference is the speed. The new iteration loads articles much faster, leaving less wasted time. Even if I can not skim through the titles on the front page, I can skim through the articles themselves quickly and easily. Now you can also save article for later reading and send them quickly via email.

But How Accessible Is It?

NYTimes iPhone App Article Page

NYTimes iPhone App Article Page Small Font

The new app scores high on my accessibility scale. Despite not having an alternate color scheme, the NYTimes app hits all the other major accessibility points. First, it has an easily scalable font. Just click on the big T button at the center of the bottom bar to increase the font or click the little T to decrease it. Not only can you then swivel the article to take advantage of easier reading with big letters on a wider screen, you can also zoom in a bit further to catch harder to read words.

NYTimes iPhone App Article Page Landscape

Overall, I am mightily impressed with the latest version of iPhone edition of the Times. On top of all that, it is free (though ad supported).

You can learn more about the NYTimes iPhone Edition here. You can read more about iPhone accessibility here.

Tags: accessibility, app, iphone, iPhone app, ipjone, new york times, news, ny times, nytimes, review, scalable font

This entry was posted on March 20, 2009 at 10:43 am and is filed under large print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.