This week Yahoo put out a magazine style newsreader called Lifestand for the iPad. I am constantly looking at these types of applications having tried both Zite and FlipBoard, so when Lifestand became available I decided to give it a try. First like both Zite and FlipBoard it is beautifully made and well design. Setting it up is easy and using it is intuitive. When you first open it there are two sections. The bottom section contains all the content available thru Lifestand. As you go through it you can bookmark topics and sources that interest you and those go into the top section. Click on a source to choose it. Swipe left to view articles within a source. Click on the article and then swipe down to read the article. To go back in the menu, click on the arrow on the left bar.
After using it for a couple of days and despite it’s strengths I have decided Lifeststand is not for me. There are several things I either don’t like about it or are missing. The first weakness in my eyes is it is too Yahoo centric, which is not surprising, I just wish they had made it less obvious. The second problem is the sources within Lifestand are limited and there is no way to add new sources. Plus unlike Zite it doesn’t let you check off your likes and dislike and learn what you want and don’t want. The third and biggest problem for me is the fact that the sharing options are limited to Facebook and email. I need to be able to easily share with Twitter and Google Plus and I can’t do that thru Lifestand. If you are a fan of Yahoo you may like Lifestand, but I still prefer Zite or FlipBoard.
