Verdict
If you live in one of the cities covered by the free Metro newspaper then you’ll know that sometimes it can be difficult to get your hands on one before you jump on your bus, train or tube on the way to work. However, with this iPhone edition of the app you’ll always have the latest daily edition delivered to your handset ready to read on your daily commute.
The app integrates with newsstand in iOS and lets you set up a free subscription. After that new daily editions are automatically delivered to your handset once they’re been released by the Metro team. Each edition is between 13 and 15MB in size and once they’re downloaded they’re available for offline reading – handy if you tend to read the paper on the tube where there’s no internet access.
All the content from the paper seems to be reproduced in the app, but obviously it’s been reformatted to neatly fit the iPhone’s screen. Navigation is very good. Once you’re inside an edition of the paper you can tap the menu icon on the top left to display a table of contents that is split up into the paper’s various different sections including News, In Focus, 60 Seconds, Business and Sport.
When you jump to a story it’s displayed vertically on the screen with a photo at the top and text below. You scroll down to read through the story and swipe left or right to jump forwards and backwards to other stories in the paper.
One annoyance, if you’re using the app with an iPhone 5, is that it hasn’t been updated yet to take advantage of the extra screen space available on that handset. Also, while you can send snippets from stories to friends or colleagues via email, this feature only sends a screen grab of the area of the story you’re looking at onscreen, it doesn’t send a link to the full story or the full text of the story, which is annoying.
Nevertheless, you can quickly jump between different editions of the paper that you’ve already downloaded via a stacking icon on the home screen. Also you can bookmark individual stories to quickly return to them later and this bookmarking works across different editions too, which is handy.
Metro Phone Edition Verdict
It may be a free paper, but the Metro Phone Edition app shows that free doesn’t have to mean rubbish. This is a well thought-out app that has good navigation and makes it easy to get your morning dose of news, sport and gossip every day.
Trusted Score
Score in detail
-
Usability 8
-
Design 8
-
Value 8
-
Features 7
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
