After spending a week with the recently released BNO News iPhone app ($1.99 + $0.99/month) I must say it really is the first of its kind. Sure, there is the AP Mobile app (free), but it's never actually... well, breaking news. By the time I get an update from the AP Mobile app (through push), I've already read about the story on Twitter (usually through @BreakingNews actually), or heard about it from friends elsewhere. Now, don't get me wrong; The AP Mobile app is a great app, it's just not very good when it comes to breaking news.

However, that's exactly what the BNO News app does. And not only does it like it claims, it also does it fairly well. Granted, I have had a few delays that seem to have been caused by Apple's push servers, rather than the reporting itself, since updates were usually already posted on their Twitter account. But when there aren't delays, the push notifications always beat the AP Mobile ones (when they even send any out), and even beat their updates on Twitter a few times.

So, the push notifications are wonderful, but what about the amount of them? Well, as their description reads, the editors choose which stories should have push notifications and which shouldn't. That's great, except well, quite frankly I don't agree with some of their choices. For example, just today I got one notification about the FriendFeed acquisition, and then a few minutes later another one. I'd like to be able to only receive "BULLETIN" or "URGENT" updates through push, and even then there can be some I simply don't care about.

Personally, I'd like the ability to select which topics or categories of updates I'd like to receive, as well as the type, such as only "URGENT" United States-related updates, if that's all I'm interested in hearing about as soon as it happens. Hopefully this functionality will come in the future, but until then, the amount of updates isn't too overwhelming, but if you really want more you can simply toggle the switch to receive "low priority" updates, as well as those selected by the editors. And if you'd rather not get alerts while you're sleeping, you can set start and end times to "ignore" push updates. This kind of functionality is something every app using push should include.

I haven't even talked about the app itself which is equally great. It's simple, clean, and fairly well thought out. The white bar indicating updates sent through push helps you gauge how many updates are being sent to you, and when you tap an update you can also choose to receive further "low priority" updates if you decide you'd like to get more information as it is released about something going on right then.

Those who follow @BreakingNews already know that BNO News frequently links to full stories on their site, and their updates on their app are no different. Clicking on a link in a story in the app opens the built-in browser to display the contents of the link, which usually is updated as more information is made available.

Of course, for all the great things, and the bad, that I have to say about it it really comes down to the user. With the app costing $1.99, plus an additional $0.99 per month to continue receiving push updates it's really a tough choice. If you really want to know as soon as something happens, this app is probably for you. But if you would rather not spend $12 a year on news, and can go without near-instant notifications the basic app itself, or the free AP Mobile app, is probably good enough for you. Overall, the app is a great first start, and will hopefully drive other news applications to offer similar functionality in the future.

Update

Dan from BitMethod's informed me that they're working on fixing the bulk push message problem for a new version, and that some of the features I mentioned that I'd like to see may also appear in a new version. I'll let you all know as soon as I hear more.

Thanks to the BNO News and BitMethod teams for providing me with a demo copy to review.