Facebook Paper is a gorgeous news-reading app from Facebook that will change how you use Facebook and the internet.
Just a day before its 10th birthday, Facebook has released Paper - an app the company has been working on over the past year or so.
Last year when Google announced that it was all set to put Google Reader to rest, rumours started making rounds that Facebook would launch a news reading app. While Paper is nothing like Google Reader, the app has everything in it to change the way people use Facebook, and the internet.
Facebook Paper is a Facebook replacement.
Built within the four walls of a new division inside Facebook - Facebook Creative Labs – where Facebook engineers are allowed to stick to their good ole’ start up culture of “run fast and break things”, Paper is an incredible creation of the company and could solve a lot of problems the company is facing at the moment.
Paper will let you explore your Facebook News Feed in an entirely new way. It has built-in messenger, notifications, and you can even post stuff to Facebook from Paper. Like I said: Facebook replacement. The post console is so beautiful that you will fall in love with it the moment you see if (that is, if you appreciate a well-done minimalist design). In fact, I used the app for an hour or so soon as it launched on the AppStore, and fell in love.
It won’t be an exaggeration to say that Paper is more of an experience. You swipe right and left to browse your News Feed, and swipe down to access settings and stuff. The buttons for notifications, messages and friend requests hover on the top right, just like on facebook.com.
And then comes the different part.
While you can use Paper to browse your Facebook News Feed, Paper provides a set of “sections” that you can add to your Paper. Do you like “Technology” and want to follow tech news? Add the technology section. Paper offers a set of predefined sections that you can add to follow news – making Paper an essential news-reading application.
Apparently Facebook has got a complete line of editors who continuously curate the best news stories from across the internet, and that also means, you cannot add websites and feeds to Paper, unlike a standard news reading app.
In a way, for an average user, the functionality offered by Paper is sufficient. Advanced users who are used to news reading applications would anyway not move away to Paper as it is confined to restricted sections.
Paper wins when it comes to the user experience and interface. It is just gorgeous. And when tried on an iPhone 5s, it is FAST, and smooth.
One incredibly awesome feature that the app packs in is how you view high resolution photos on Facebook. The app is designed to be used in the portrait mode and when you come across a high res pic (especially the ones in landscape orientation) – you just tilt your phone to see the pan the photo. See if for yourself below!
Paper is like a birthday gift Facebook made for itself.
Paper is presently available only for the iPhone and only in the US. You can try this link to see if it works for you in India.
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