PressReader for iPhone, Android Offers Subscriptions to Digitized Magazines, Newspapers From Around the World

Newspapers are gradually going out of style, at least in some markets. While a growing number of mobile users are using smartphones, access to digital content, like newspapers, magazines and other publications, is likewise becoming more mobile. After earlier featuring Flipboard’s launch of its iPhone app in China, we get to try another content reader for mobile devices: PressReader.

PressReader offers access to 2,100 newspapers and magazines from 95 countries in 54 languages. These are delivered directly to tablets or smartphones, with support for Android and iOS.

PressReader offers the following features, among others.

• Innovative horizontal reading stream (iPad only)
• Flipping pages like they’re reading real publications
• Setting up automated subscriptions to their favorite titles
• Sorting publications by country, language, favorites or recently ordered
• Panning and zooming articles and photos and view in stunning clarity
• Listening to publications using on-demand audio
• Sharing articles by email, Twitter and Facebook

Unlike other popular content readers and social magazines, though, PressReader takes a different approach to displaying content, depending on the publication. The actual newspaper or magazine page is digitized, and presented like a scanned page. Some publications, like the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper, offers hyperlinks to text versions of articles. Others yet, like UNO, only offer digitized versions of the pages.

Some publications also offer audio streaming, so users can listen to the articles, instead — useful when you want to listen to your news instead of read, such as when driving.

For both types of publication display, though, PressReader offers a quick-access table of contents, where headlines can be accessed either through a page-thumbnail overview or a text outline. Articles can easily be shared, although this is currently limited to email, Twitter and Facebook.

Publication availability varies by country. In the U.S. alone, there are 375 titles, while some regions are a bit more limited. For instance, Australia has 182 titles, China only has 16. India has 103 titles, while Hong Kong has 10. Still, PressReader lets international users get access to local newspapers and magazines — a boon for expats and anyone with interest in world or foreign news.

PressReader has 189 Asian publications so far:

• China 16
• Indonesia 5
• South Korea 7
• Japan 5
• Malaysia 9
• Philippines 30
• Taiwan 2
• Thailand 12
• India 103

PressReader offers auto-delivery of new updates as they come, and users can choose to allow background updating, so they get new updates without having to open the app. This is a great feature, but users with slow Interet connections or smartphones/tablets with limited specs can disable auto-delivery.

PressReader is a free app from the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store (formerly Android Market). Credits are required for downloads and subscriptions, although PressReader offers 7 free credits to new users. An unlimited subscription costs US$ 29.99, which gives you unlimited access to all 2,100 publications, which is a good deal if you do a lot of reading. PressReader does offer per-item subscription or purchases, too, at US$ 0.99 per issue, for lighter consumption.

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