Since the closure of Google News, we’ve seen a great many news readers rise up to try and fill that whole in your life. In fact, the death of Google News might have done a lot of us a favor, after all we’re all trying new things and experiencing new apps that we might not otherwise have even thought about using. Apps that make better use of high-resolution displays and just look better than the forgotten Google News app did. We’ve learnt to use different apps to get a hold of our news, like Feedly and co. Now, here comes one from Sony, that’s right the same people that make the Xperia Z2 smartphone announced last month. Dubbed Socialife, it was once available only to Sony devices, but now the company has opened it up to everyone.
The app itself is available from the Play Store for Android smartphones running Android 4.1 and above. It’s exactly what you’d expect, and anyone that’s used Feedly or something similar will know the score here. Sony’s app allows you to pick and choose from hundreds of different news sources and lets you sort of surf through them from a main page titled “Headlines”. This main page is akin to a home page, and displays news from your “Top 20” feeds that you’ve chosen. Socialife also syncs with other devices, including your PC if you’re running Windows 8, something that could prove of some use to myself, as well as those with Windows 8 at the office (but who really uses Windows 8 for enterprise, we ask?).
Only Sony devices can use their Sony Entertainment Network pass and the app isn’t compatible with tablets, which is somewhat disappointing. However, this is a slick app that looks good on a variety of devices. It didn’t look out-of-place on my Nexus 5 when I played around with it for instance, and the text is nice and readable. Certainly, the app needs some improvement, but now that Sony has opened it up to everyone, they should be getting much more of the feedback they need. Take a look at Sony’s quick YouTube video below and let us know what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3VMf1AkJts