Today's Big App - Paper

Paper. It doesn't quite sound like anything to cause much of a fuss, but tech sites and Facebook users everywhere are raving about Facebook's newest mobile app. This app combines the social media aspect of Facebook with various selected news topics all in the same, easy to navigate app. Upon first start up, this app offers numerous options of what information you might like to browse, be it the news, cooking, technology, entertainment, etc. After selecting the ones you desire, it leads you to the main page where all the fun happens.

The first page (as pictured above) contains the latest in your news feed from Facebook. You can cycle through these at your leisure, and you only have to swipe up on a status or picture to have it fill the screen so you can comment and like to your heart's content. Swiping downwards on the main page allows you to update your status, and it is formatted to show exactly what your post will look like. But that's just the first page. Swiping horizontally will allow you to brows the other relevant news from the categories you chose to follow. Swiping left once could give you all the latest world news headlines, while swiping again may lead you to all the gossip on the latest celebrities. And again, you but need to swipe up on the story and you can read it in its entirety. 

As an iPad user, it was unfortunate to find that they do not have an implementation for the iPad. Downloading the current iPhone app onto the iPad renders it blurry and not really worth it. Facebook stated upon Paper's launch that it will not be releasing a version for the iPad, Android, or international users at this time. I'm hoping that if it garners enough attention these will be implemented, but for now it may take a while for those users to have access to this app. 

All said and done though, it is a great idea to have access to your Facebook profile while keeping up with all your other areas of interest. Instead of merely being informed on what your friends are doing, you can very easily keep track of the entire world. Since this app is also completely free and completely ad free (for now), it is hard to at least not give it a shot.