USA TODAY for iPhone
Description of App
All the USA TODAY content you love in a sleek new design, updated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on your iPhone and iPod Touch.
In the 2.1 release:
NEW: Look for ‘Top Videos’ categories within each section
NEW: Sports now features USA TODAY Coaches Poll
Photo Galleries now support pinch & zoom functionality
And did you know you can also:
Change your background color and font size in Settings > Article Display Options
Add Weather locations by tapping the ‘info’ button
Download stories for Offline Reading in Settings > Offline Mode
Manage your Breaking News alerts in your iPhone/iPod Touch’s Settings > Notifications menu
But the “2.0” app also features:
Navigation
- Simple, unified drop-down navigation. Easily move between articles in a section with a swipe gesture.
Headlines and Breaking News
- Browse and read stories from News, Money, Sports, Life, Tech and Travel. Watch related videos, enlarge images and share stories via Facebook, Twitter, email or text message. Get notified of breaking news via a breaking news banner in News and by subscribing to push notifications.
Scores
- Review the latest sports scores for NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, college football and college basketball. Filter college scores down to your favorite conferences.
Pictures
- Flip through the day’s best photos from news, sports and celebrities. Check out the latest editorial cartoons from around the country. Share your favorite photo galleries with friends.
Weather
- Get live weather conditions and the five-day forecast for your favorite locations. Pinch and zoom your interactive weather radar map (radar for U.S. locations only).
Snapshots
- Scan through USA TODAY Snapshots, vote on the related poll questions and review responses from other users by filtering the results down to your current state and city (U.S. cities only).
Please contact us anytime with feedback or questions: usatodaymobile@usatoday.com or on Twitter @usatodaymobile. For additional information, please visit http://www.usatoday.com/iphone.
Version
Free or Paid
Compatibility
Device(s) App Was Tested On
Accessibility Comments
There are issues with this app.
VoiceOver Performance
Button Labeling
Usability
Other Comments
There are some issues when reading the articles. For some reason when reading the articles doing a two fingers swipe down it will not read the entire article. Instead you have to swipe or flick to the left a number of times. At some point it will just keep reading the same paragraph twice before proceeding on. Hopefully, this will be fixed very soon.
Comments
#1 great app!
Wow!!! This is an awesome app! Only thing is, I don't want the weather showing up since it's not for my current location... I tapped it, but now I don't want it showing up anymore. How do I get it to go away?
I love this app though. This has always been one of my favorite papers! Now I can read it anytime anywhere!
#2 Weather be gone!
Very simple! Go in to the Weather section. Find the Edit Locations. Double tap on this. Now remove all of the cities on the list. Now go back to your news. Now the weather has disappeared! Poof!
Kind of abummer you can't simply say don't display a location weather on each of my pages. Now if you want the weather you have to go back in and add your locations. I couldn't find any settings of sort for this kind of option you wanted. It is as is. :(
#3 one minor issue
I would agree with most of what was stated above. However, I have found that, in the one instance tonight when I tried to double tap on the first headline, it takes me to the second story and the first one is nowhere to be found. I'll try this again later when the first top story is something else to see if it was something with this particular story, or whether it is a flaw in the app. Overall, I'm much much more pleased with this app over previous versions, which were only slightly usable at best.
#4 re: weather be gone
Thanks, I fixed it! It was driving me crazy having ghe weather show up for other cities other than my own. So I just wanted it gone!!! Love this app though!!!
#5 Minor issues indeed
Well, I'm not sure to make of that. You are correct. No matter what section you are in. That Highlighted news I guess you would say is not readable because no matter what you do it will always take you to the news below that. However, it is that highlighted news part only. All other news below that works just fine. Not sure what to think of that. That is certainly a minor issue.
#6 a minor issue
I agree with you, it's a minor issue. Before I took my review of the 5 most popular free news apps review down to 3, USA Today was part of this project. I even received an email from the app developer today stating that they felt many of the accessibility issues from the last version were fixed, which was what made me so eager to check. So I also give them points for taking the feedback I and others have given them with regard to accessibility in to account.
#7 Re: Usa Today for iPhone, version 2.0
The original version of this app was very user-friendly for VoiceOver users. Then the update made it where you couldn't read article titles. I am EXTREMELY PLEASED with the new version, and highly recommend it to people interested in the news!
I do have one question. This update did not show in App Store updates, and I wouldn't have known about it had I not checked out Apple Vis this morning. Does anyone know why it didn't show?
#8 USAToday Update
That is a very good question. Well, the first thing to note is that USAToday for some reason had made an entirely new app for their v2.0 release. Thus, the older version is now being discontinued. The reason it didn't show up as a new update is because that older app is being discontinued. They changed the name to USAToday for iPhone instead of the older name of just USAToday. So really it is two different app and it wouldn't have shown up as an update because of this reason. Again, why they did this is beyond me. Luckily for you that you came across the AppleVis site to find this out! ;)
#9 Loving this app!
Once I got use to the nesting for the 'Section Menu', I find that this is my new favorite news app! It took me a little while to realize that sub-sections were popping up at the bottom.!
I am also very pleased with the detailed captions that go along with every photo that accompanies a story.
As far as the weather goes. You can add your own city and then reorder how they can appear. I wasn't sure about switching between them but I found that when you are in the weather section just three finger swipe left or right and it will move you from city to city that you have on the list. As stated above, it is simple to just remove any cities you don't care about.
For me however, once I set my home city and moved it to the top of the list, I really don't care about the other cities being there. I even added cities where I have family or places that I tend to travel to.
#10 Full Voiceover support is back
The menu structure while accessible could be designed better. The swipe to next article gesture doesn't seem to work when Voiceover is on.
#11 VoiceOver Improvements in Version 2.1.0
FYI, Version 2.1.0 was released yesterday, and VoiceOver improvements were listed in the "What's New" section.
#12 Version 2.1.0
That is correct! USAToday continues to provide an outstanding news app for the blind community in making this one of the best and most accessible news app out there!
What's New in Version 2.1
* Lots of new video content available in our new ‘Top Videos’ categories
* Sports section features the USA TODAY College Coaches Poll
* Photo Galleries support pinch & zoom functionality
* Direct navigation is now possible between Photo Gallery categories
* News > Health section now updates correctly
* Easier to swipe between Articles and Sections
* More Accessibility/VoiceOver improvements
#13 Can't get complete articles to read with Voiceover
I installed the latest USA Today for iPhone update and have discovered a major flaw with reading the articles. I do the two finger swipe down gesture to start reading an article and it always stops reading after a few paragraphs. At firrst I wondered why the articles had gotten so much shorter. It turns out that there is a lot of the article text that is not being read by Boiceover. I am not sure how this got broken in the latest update. I did contact USA Today support about my issue. Is anyone else experiencing this issue? The navigation around the app is still excellent with Voiceover. However I am going to have to restore the previous version of the app to hopefully remedy the problem of incomplete reading of the articles.
#14 I am also experiencing this issue in v2.1.1
I've had this same problem with both 2.1 and 2.1.1.
I did not have the problem with the version prior to 2.1.
Two finger swipe down reads a few paragraphs but then stops.
Single finger swipe right by paragraph hops back and forth randomly between previous & next paragraphs and other spots within the article.
I can still move my finger down the screen to read, but this method is less than desirable of course.
ATT iPhone 4S running IOS 5.1.1
#15 Version 2.1.1
Thanks for pointing that out for us. I have made the proper changes to reflect this latest update being not as accessible as it was. They really seem to bounce back and forth on being accessible in one version and so not accessible in the next. Can only hope in the next version or so will fix this issue once again.
#16 I'm having the same issue and
I'm having the same issue and would encourage you all to reportthis to the developer. This bug makes me not want to use the app anymore. This is a shame, because they do have some great content not available in the actual newspaper you can get from Newsline.
#17 developer responds!
I'm not sure why other people don't send off messages making devs aware of this stuff. Saying it on Applevis is good, but only the start. here's the reply I received from USA Today when I wrote them regarding the issues we discussed on this thread.
"
Dear Scott Davert,
Thank you for taking the time to write to USA TODAY.
We greatly appreciate your feedback and will investigate these bugs immediately. We consider Accessibility / VoiceOver support to be an extremely important usability feature of our app, and will correct the issue as soon as possible.
Again, thank you for your feedback and continued support.
#18 2.1.2 was released today, and
2.1.2 was released today, and the same issues noted above still exist. I have contacted the developer accordingly.
#19 USA Today still has problems after 2 updates
Since I reported the Voiceover performance of the USA Today app to Gannett they have come out with two updates to the app. However the Voiceover issues are still there. When I use the two finger swipe down gesture to read the article it will only read a few paragraphs before stopping. It used to read the complete article without stopping.
I ruge any users of this app to please contact the developer. I am doing so right now.
#20 Version 2.3.0.3
Unfortunetly, the existing problems with the articles sill persist in this new update. In some ways I find it a bit more harder to read. Now when I flick to the left and right to read the article at times I will get a click sound with no results. I have to tap on the screen to continue reading in the article. It is like you have to swipe up to be able to read on.
That is a shame. I can only hope that this issue will be fixed in upcoming releases.
However, at least they are up to IOS 6 and iPhone 5 compatible! ;)
What's New in Version 2.3.0.3
* Full support for iOS 6 and iPhone 5 screen size compatibility
* Bug fixes and stability improvements
#21 Are people contacting the
Are people contacting the developer on this issue with reading articles? I am going to contact them again. I find this an unfortunate situation especially since they worked so hard last year to restore accessibility with VoiceOver.