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NY Times Windows 8 app the pleasure of great journalism

NY Times app tile

New York Times app tile supports live tile updates

Daily free stories on the New York Times Windows 8 app make it one of Windows 8 best apps

NY Times app

Windows 8 New York Times app is the best journalism and partly free every day

The full subscription to the New York Times costs between $15 and $20 a month. Approximately 12 stories a day are free without subscription.

On a Windows 8 computer, tablet or phone with touch, that means 30 minutes of swiping and reading some of the best journalism in the English-speaking world.

Admittedly, not everyone likes the high standards of journalism still practiced at “The Grand Old Lady” of newspapers, a paper which has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other.

The old front page masthead motto “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has been modernized on the website, but missing from the portable apps, to “All the News That’s Fit to Click.”  The app supports limited multi-media and mainly sticks to the main purpose – strong writing and well researched stories.

At the tender age of 17, I hitchhiked to New York City and the Greenwich Village folk music scene. Just before midnight Saturday, people everywhere appeared on the streets of Manhattan and the Village, tucking a very large newspaper under their arms.

Nocturnal New York revelers were picking up the huge Sunday Edition of the New York Times. That was my introduction to one of the great pleasures of life – whiling away Sunday over coffee, brunch and the New York Times.

The free access to the New York Times won’t get you the Sunday sections on Arts & Leisure, Sunday Review, Editorials, Op-Ed and Letters, Travel, Magazine, Book Review, Sports Sunday, Sunday Styles, Real Estate and Automobiles.

The free stories seven days a week are mainly the front page, which is a wonderful respite from the sensational and shoddy journalism that passes for newspapers these days.

You can still read some of the full edition on the NY Times website. Full access is only available to subscribers. They are obviously trying to get more paying subscribers to pay for their operations.

NY Times app tile

New York Times app tile supports live tile updates

Anywhere in the world, one can enjoy the New York Times digital editions as soon as the stories are posted. That is definitely progress over getting the news days late by courier or in the mail.

Pity me being stuck on PEI, like people in the rural hinterland everywhere, with only the local rag to pass the time on the weekends. Thank goodness for the internet.

Even the Globe and Mail, arguably Canada’s best mainstream paper, is provincial compared to the New York Times.

The New York Times app is also available on Apple iPhone, iPad, Android.

Having tried it on every size and shape of portable device, my personal view is that nothing beats reading the New York Times on a large Windows 8 touch screen.

A 23″ or larger screen does not reduce reading the paper to an exercise in squinting that a smartphone or 10″ tablet does. The smaller screens obviously have the benefit of portability.

Windows 8 gives the NY Times the size it deserves and closely replicate the experience of reading the real newspaper, without having to find space for the two pages.

A trial of the full digital subscription is $0.99 for the first 4 weeks.

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