Early review of NPR's new News app: "awesome"

The NPR News App for the iPhone and iPod touch is now available for free downloads from Apple's App Store. The application, one of several that NPR is developing, is the first news-oriented app allowing users to read or listen to news stories and programs, or to do both simultaneously. It also offers live or on-demand streams from 600 NPR stations. NPR introduces its news app here, where Weekend Edition's Scott Simon hosts a video demo of its features and navigation. Unlike the Public Radio Player, which serves up web streams and programming information for more than 300 pubradio stations, the NPR News app is focused on the "NPR experience," Kinsey Wilson, senior v.p. of NPR Digital, tells paidContent. "They’ve taken a comprehensive view and tried to encompass every single show produced at every station," Wilson says, referring to the Public Radio Player. "It does create some performance issues and some navigation issues. We wanted to keep it a little more compact, a little more focused on what 80-90 percent of the audience is listening to." The app was released just yesterday so there aren't many detailed techie reviews of it yet, but here's one that just gushes with praise: "NPR finally has an iPhone app, and it is awesome."