Regular readers may remember my review of the PimpMyNews iPhone web app, which reads out text stories from a host of blogs and online news sites. I thought it could be a hit if the app got the same personalisation features as the main PimpMyNews site, and now the company behind it has been in touch to say that they’ve done just that.
You can now access your PimpMyNews Favorites Playlist on the iPhone version, allowing you to set up a custom feed of your favourite sources and have them read out to you on the go. It’s a great inclusion, and shows that the iPhone site is developing at a swift pace.
Oh, and Pocket Picks can now be found in the Technology>Apple category. Which is a bonus!
PimpMyNews for iPhone link
Online news aggregator PimpMyNews has launched what it describes as a ‘talking social news application’ for iPhone and iPod Touch. It converts text-based news stories from a host of news sites and blogs into synthesized speech, which it reads out to you through your iPhone’s speaker. It claims to offer 1,000 of the web’s ‘top’ sites, and is based on the existing PimpMyNews website, which offers a similar service for web users.
It works fairly well - I’ve just been testing it out. The iPhone version is currently lacking the personalisation features of the main site, where you can set up a custom feed of stories according to your interests. On iPhone, you’re restricted to hearing the top stories from news sites and blogs. The computerised speech sounds about as natural as you could hope, and stories stream through QuickTime quickly and without jitters.
There are some flaws in the idea - such as when the linky bits on the end of blog posts are read out as if they’re part of the story. And I’d still rather scan text than have news read out to me. But if they can develop the site with the personalisation aspects (and include Pocket Picks as a feed, obviously!), PimpMyNews could be a hit with iPhone users.
PimpMyNews for iPhone link
