Curated by a Times editor, the app's news feed (its central feature) includes articles, blog posts, videos and tweets from external sources. The company says its syndicated political Op-Eds, editorials and blogs, such as The Caucus and Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, will make the app an essential mobile destination for politics buffs.
Election 2012 is free to download, but only Times digital subscribers have access to all the app's content, such as the Election Guide. As a non-digital subscriber, you can just see the top six stories. You can also access the app's content from a desktop browser, here.
“Our goal is for the Election 2012 App to be the destination for people turning to their phones to stay on top of the most important campaign stories of the moment,” Fiona Spruill, New York Times editor of emerging platforms, said in a statement. “There is a mountain of political news and information out there. We’re trying to make it easier for people by pairing The Times’s distinguished political coverage with a curated take on the best stories from around the Web and the social-media universe.”
Like the "highlighted stories first" feature of Facebook's News Feed, users see the most important stories since their last visit when they open the app.
The app, which requires iOS 4.0 or later, also features an Election Guide, a database of candidate profiles, poll results, tweets, state profiles, past primary results, delegate rules and a primary calendar. On primary nights, it will provide live updates of race results.
Does this app sound like a good mobile politics resource? Do you use any other election apps?