A new app from Quartz promises “news in a whole new way,” delivering bite-sized stories in a fun, friendly and unique interface.
The digital-only news outlet has expanded from website to app, but decided against a straight port of its articles for the smaller screen. Instead it has opted for a new approach, dispensing snippets of information as messenger-style chat from a news robot, which can respond to basic inputs and questions from the user. It’s a fun way to stay up to date on global stories with just a few spare minutes throughout the day.
Users can tap the speech bubbles to reply
As well as covering serious news stories, Quartz also provides more unusual stories of interest. You can skip anything you’re not fussed about, or ask the app for more details if you like the sound of something. It’s also got a silly bonus feature for Apple Watch users that will “gauge the markets with an emoji” on the watch face. Oh, and the responses aren’t really written by a robot – everything is curated by real life humans working from the more detailed stories on qz.com.
We’ve been using Quartz since its recent launch, and with notifications on it does feel a little like being sent personal news updates from a friend. It’s a neat idea, and is available free on the App Store.