Zite, the magazine of future

Zite, the magazine of future

The one app that can make your day! 

As a longtime happy (and proud) user of Android devices, I have tested quite a few news-reading apps and magazines, such as Flipboard, PulseNews, Google Currents, News360 and some of the most specific ones, such as Drippler (for Android-related information, customized specifically for my phone), Mashable (app for quickly accessing the site) and more. However, no app has ever come close to what one app alone can provide, at least in my case. And yes, that's Zite. 

Before hoping on to the review of Zite, it's interesting to understand what Zite exactly is. Basically, it claims to be 'an intelligent magazine', that customizes itself using smart algorithms over time, as you start using it more, bringing you only the news that matters to you. While the working principle of this beautiful application is rather simple, i.e it just 'asks' you to thumbs-up or thumbs-down an article, and then return more articles of the type you prefer, overall (and with time) it digitally evolves to be something almost magical. In my case, after using the application for a week, I can clearly see that every single piece of info the app fetches catches my attention. 

The concept of intelligent magazine 

Back in the 1990s, or even the 2000s, we were stuck with hard copies of magazines, which had to be purchased, and whose contents did not change at all. This meant, after buying, say a Forbes or an India Today issue, we were stuck with whatever was provided inside, including stories, reviews, articles, discussion and more. However, with the advent of smart technology and cloud-based computing, this is thankfully changing. Now we have the exquisite model of client-server computing design, in which a client software (the app in this case) resides on your device locally, and makes requests to a server software (the thing that remotely caters to the requests made by client). And this magical design is almost a wish come true, because it saves resources, makes intelligent use of your data plan and doesn't require awesome processing power on your device to deliver exquisite results. This is the model that zite and other apps of this category follow. 

What makes zite especially interesting is the primary resource that it uses for grabbing news and articles. Yeah, the resource I'm talking about is the internet, perhaps the greatest creation of mankind ever. Among the many positive sides of the internet is that, it is the most extensive global repository of information, that keeps on constantly updating itself. No book, no magazine, no newspaper can come this close, which is clear. And zite uses this awesomeness of the internet to cook up something that its users like us find delicious. 

As an 'intelligent magazine', zite's app simply monitors your tastes and likes, sends specialized requests to the server which then prioritizes your preferences and returns what matters most to you. You may be a fan of gardening, or a music enthusiast, or a political scholar, or even a philosopher, it doesn't matter. Simply select your topic, and zite does the rest. 

Why should I install zite? 

Internet is a great resource to learn truly a lot from, but with its growing complexity and size, it often becomes difficult and time-consuming for us to find things of interest, or things that matter to us. And in this fast-moving world, it's productive to save as much time as you can. Here comes the merit of zite, it simply does the hard part of the job, by finding and discovering new information and presenting it to you in a familiar, clear format, so that the only things you need to do are reading and telling zite whether you liked it or not. 

Merits of the app

NOTE: I use zite primarily on my 5'' android phablet, and so I have no experience of using it on an iPad or any other iOS device. So, my review is primarily focused on the android version of this app. 

I've been so very impressed with the app that I can hardly think of any adjective to describe the meticulous detail and splendour with which it has been developed. Still, we all like point-wise lists, and lets have a look at some of the more interesting features and merits of zite: 

1. It's free 

Yeah, the title says it all. While playstore does have a multitude of different colourful apps, many of the good ones are often overpriced. And yet, here zite is, totally free of cost. While it certainly isn't FOSS (my darlings in the software market), being free of cost is certainly a good thing. And when you have something this good for a price tag of $0.00, it's rocking! And yeah, be sure to give it a good rating and review (you can install it from the playstore). 

2. Aesthetic design 

Zite focuses on minimalism, as well as the KISS (Keep It Simple, Silly) philosophy. The interface is very easy to use, and get used to. And while high degree of customization is not available, zite does definitely live up to its claim. One thing that its users often miss is that fact that zite focuses on its contents, rather than the app functionality. I don't know about its critiques, but as for myself I definitely like the minimalist interface, because it lets me focus on my contents more precisely. 

Another beautiful feature of zite is the 'quicklist'. It's basically a list of all your favourite topics. Simply slide from left to right anytime, and you can see your topics. Tap anyone, and you can see the contents under the said topic. This is just awesome, because it not only makes zite more versatile, but makes it appear to be a multi-magazine app. With just one tap, I can change back and forth between the latest headlines on 'blogging' and 'Physics'. 

3. Smart algorithm 

Minimalist design is something
that makes zite so special 

This is the core functionality of zite, that which makes it so awesome. Simply start zite, select a few topics of your preference (you can just insert any word as the topic, such as 'blogging', 'politics', 'India', 'Australia' and 'paranormal'), and you are all set to go. The server simply filters the web, surveys the contents and then distills an edition that is sure to pick your interest. 

Here, we see something that I first saw in the popular discovery engine StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon undergoes a sort of 'digital evolution', that is, it gets smarter with time and usage. Obviously, a little bit of user-interaction is required, in the process of 'liking' or 'disliking' the results, and that does the job completely. Everything else is automatic. Zite too follows a similar design. Be sure to tap the 'thumbs up' button for articles you liked, and vice versa. Zite gets what you mean to say, and just returns more content of the type you preferred, and filters the type you disliked. 

As an added benefit, you can block the sites you don't like contents from, and select the ones you value. Zite understands the issue and immediately starts catering to your needs.

4. Dual modes of viewing 

This is quite similar to 'Pocket'. Like Pocket, Zite allows you a 'reader mode', in which the entirely article is presented in an ebook-like, enforced format, or else you can just view the original web mode, which is just a mobile version of the site. Since a lot of zite articles feature videos, web mode allows you to view the videos without requiring to start Youtube or your web browser. 

5. Low data usage 

The quicklist has the ability to
virtually turn your e-magazine
into an entirely different and
new one, just with the snap of
a finger. 

For many of us, especially those who maintain a separate internet connection for Smartphones and/or tablets, data is a matter of concern. But here again, the brilliant design of zite comes into play. Since you're primarily reading text, images are possibly compressed and then displayed in the reader mode. This saves you from additional data usage. Even after using zite regularly for browsing my interests and reading really a lot for one week, I found its total data usage to be around 35 MB. You simply need to check your Android's data usage feature to see how much data zite uses. 

6. Fast rendering 

This is essentially an extension of the previous point. Since zite needs to less data, it works judiciously fast even with slow connections. My plan includes 6 GB of 3G data, and unlimited 2G data at really low rate thereafter (20 kBps/160 kbps). And still, zite works marvellously for my device. 

This is one of the few reasons for which I like zite the most. Previously, I saw that currents and flipboard, and even Pulse and News360 consumed a lot of data on my device. And naturally, they loaded slowly (or even didn't sync properly at times). Zite is the only true exception that works reasonably well even on slow connections. 

7. The social news-reading experience 

This is nothing special, but still worth mentioning. zite fully incorporates Android's built-in sharing feature, and makes it easy to share any article with your buddies on Google+, Facebook etc. Similarly, you can easily save an article on the likes of Pocket for reading offline later. 

8. Low memory consumption 

Unlike many of its big buddies such as Flipboard or Currents, Zite typically uses very less RAM, and thus works well on low-end devices as well. And once you relate this mentally to point 5# and 6#, it's clearly that zite is for anyone and everyone! You don't need a premium smartphone or tablet for enjoying its benefits. 

Where it needs a bit more work 

Well, the more we get, the more we demand. This is our basic human nature, and I can't be hoped to be above it. Thus, I expect a few more features to be added to zite in future. The only thing that comes to my mind right now is the lack of customizability. 

Yes, that's the foremost of most of our demands. While we can easily change the text size, that's more or less everything we can do. Naturally, a bit more customizability will be more than welcome, such as a dedicated 'night mode', margins, text colour and font, and more. 

Final verdict 

As a new user of the app, I'm still learning my ways around it. And still, I an honestly say that in my opinion and experience, zite is by far the best app for readings the latest news and articles on pretty much anything and everything. And in addition, this is the only app that comes anywhere close to a true e-magazine of my expectations. It has the potential to turn you into an avid, well-informed reader. It's certain, at least in my case, that zite has truly redefined the way I learn from online reading materials.