Quick review: Digital Journal for BlackBerry PlayBook

Digital Journal is a beautiful News Feed application that has recently come to the Blackberry Playbook and the iPad. It has taken a place in my ‘Favourites’ on my Playbook due to its beautiful design and handy information.
Now Digital Journal isn’t like most news applications in that the News stories aren’t from websites, they are from bloggers who write specifically for Digital Journal. So if you are looking for an application in which you can input your own News Feeds, look elsewhere. However, this application is still a very useful as the bloggers that write for it clearly have a high level of experience. In addition, all the stories that are written are relevant to current affairs.

The presentation of the application is what I love most about it; it begins with a loading screen, then you are shown a really nice layout of about 10/11 stories in boxes that you can tap on. Also, on the page is a sections button in the top right hand corner along with a settings button. The sections button brings down your different categories of News, of which there are plenty (I counted 23 different categories.) These sections can also be brought down by swiping down from the top bezel. Clicking on the settings menu in the top right brings up Info, Settings and access to your Twitter & Facebook accounts (to share the stories.)

When you click on a story, the story flips over (as if you were flipping a piece of card over) and you are brought to the simple yet nicely laid out story view. On the story view you are given a back option (to obviously go back a page). The story is presented in two panes, on the left pane you get your story, which scrolls very smoothly; and on the right pane, you are given Facebook and Twitter buttons (to share to obviously) and a Next and Back button, to switch between articles.
Phew, now that has all been explained with lots of commas and semi-colons, let’s move on the negatives of this application. The biggest negative I can find with this application is that you can’t add in your own RSS Feeds or website sources. Admittedly, all the news you’re ever going to need is already given to you; but some people like to follow certain websites due to their style of writing or their content. Another little nag that I have is that sometimes the transitions lagged a little, but I’m sure this is something that can be easily sorted in a small update.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, this application has moved its way into my favourites on my PlayBook simply because of its simple yet beautiful design. Also it gives great news and there is a category for everything that you’ll need to know about current affairs. It even has Digital Journal’s own Twitter feed for you to look through. All-in-all this is a very nice application and I would definitely check it out if you’re rocking an iPad or a PlayBook.