Microsoft launches a news application for iOS users known as "News Pro" today to rival Apple's own news application that the company launches late last year. The news app is aiming to offer a more personalized experience as users can choose topic according to their interest only.
Although the news app has lots of resemblance with the Apple news app, the biggest difference of the two according to the review is that Microsoft "News Pro" is powered by Bing. Another difference according to Tech Crunch is that users have to log in via their social account media account, either LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
The social media login was introduced as a way for the app to read users' interest to deliver a more appropriate content to them.
According to Engadget, what separates "News Pro" from another news application in the market is its extensive options for the type of stories that users can choose. The news site stated that users can use the Explore tab and choose different categories from industries, companies, skills and products.
The news app which was created by the Microsoft Garage team was seen by some critics as unimpressive since there is no fresh innovation in the news app. However, according to the released statement by the tech company, they believe that the app will be able to give users a more career-related topics.
According to Microsoft's statement as reported by Microsoft News, "News Pro helps you search for news around your work every day. Fuel your unique interests with over a million topics to choose from. Get informed efficiently by locating the most important and relevant articles each day based off what interests you. Leverage the power of social networks for your daily news."
However, one noteworthy option provided by "News Pro" is its "Speedy Mode" option which offers a quick-to-load version of an article that a user choose. Critics also claim that the function is similar to Apple, SmartNews function available in iOS.
For now, Microsoft News Pro will not be released for Windows or Android soon as the Microsoft Garage product is not fully backed by Microsoft. Even for the iOS version of the app is only available in the US.
The release of "News Pro" seems like a way for Microsoft to rival with Apple news app as the company announced that it will launch a support paid content for their application soon. With plenty of partnership with other publishers, the Apple app is expected to be able to stand out compared to other news content.
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