We have submitted Newsstand 1.3 to Apple yesterday and, for the impatient, here are the release notes, as they will appear in iTunes:
- New landscape mode for reading articles and browsing feed lists
- Embedded Twitter client for instant sharing of articles
- Mini Browser and article display merged into one view for improved memory footprint
- Font size can now be adjusted in every theme; removed ‘Large Font’ theme
- Delicious.com sharing now uses the embedded browser
- The article list now displays the time instead of the date for today’s articles
- General interface overhaul and scrolling performance improvements
- Option to refresh all feeds at launch
- Removed the ‘Article Zoom’ preference in favor of an improved default behaviour
This release is mostly focussed on improvements to the interface, the most visible of which is the new, more traditional landscape mode. Rotating your device no longer triggers the fancy coverflow-style view, but instead you can read articles and browse feeds similar to Safari’s landscape mode. The ‘newsstand’ mode is of course still available by touching a button.
By popular demand, posting to Twitter is a new way of sharing your articles. You can do so directly from within Newsstand and it features some shortcuts to make it quick and easy. For example, you can insert a TinyURL to the current article just by tapping a button, there’s also a handy counter to make sure you stay within the 140 character limit.
The embedded mini browser sees a refresh too. It is no longer a popup, instead you stay within the article view, just the toolbar changes to make navigation and opening Safari possible. This is not only faster than the previous method, it also conserves memory. This new browser is now also used to post to delicious, so you don’t have to leave Newsstand for that anymore.
While the selection of themes is still the same in 1.3, you can now customize the font size of each theme with a slider in the selection dialog. This makes the ‘Large Font’ theme redundant, so it’s no longer there. Just use the default theme and select a larger font for the same effect.
Hopefully, this new version will be available soon as a free download for existing customers (otherwise still $4.99). We can’t give an exact release date right now, it usually takes Apple about a week to approve an update, but sometimes more. As soon as it’s out, feel free to tell us what you like or don’t like about the new version. Thanks!