Free Version of New York Times Reader Available

I know this is a bit of old news for some, but I was showing a friend the New York Times Reader this weekend and realized I had never mentioned that they have gone back to having a free version.

If you’ve never seen the NYT Reader application, it’s really worth checking out.  It is definitely the nicest reading experience I’ve ever seen for anything on a screen.  It adjusts to any screen size, you can control the font size, and it synchs seven days of news in case you need to catch up.  You can get a slide show of photos of the latest news.  It’s a very beautiful and unique application that has looked fantastic on all of the machines I have tried it on.  It’s really easy to navigate, and there’s no scrolling.

Personally, the best part about the Reader is that it’s all RSS-based, which means that I can load the application on my laptop, let it sync, and then disconnect and get on a plane or train and read the news as if I were online.

The New York Times Reader is a Windows Presentation Foundation application, so it has some really nice, unique features.  FlowLayout allows for adaptive columns and dynamic layout of text & graphics, unlike most fixed-width news websites we’re all used to.  To help improve readability there are enhancements to text from WPF’s ClearType engine and embedded fonts, too.  And it’s the caching ability of WPF that allows you to disconnect from then Internet & still have all your content.

The free edition includes the latest news, top technology articles and other popular stories.  It also has articles from the Times Magazine and the weekly crossword puzzle.  For all sections & articles from the New York Times, you can upgrade to the full version for $14.95/month.  Home delivery subscribers get the Times Reader for free.  Lastly, there is a free beta for Mac available now too!

Did you just do a double-take?  I mentioned this was built in WPF, yet there is a Mac version!  No, Microsoft hasn’t ported the entire .NET 3.0 framework to the Mac.  The Mac version uses Silverlight.  It’s not exactly the same experience, as Silverlight is mostly a subset of the WPF controls, but it looks great, too.

If you like this application and are interested in building your own version for your content, there is a free SDK available. 

Cross posted from Martha's Blog