Espresso: World news in a shot

After scripture and meditation, and brewing strong joe, this app has become my next-step morning ritual. It offers a bite-size overview of interesting developments around the world every morning, with no propagandist urgency, no yellow journalism, no clickbait titles, no SEO writing, no gossip, no editorial errors, no long-winded diatribes, nor any videos. The POTUS is only ever mentioned in connection with important policy or diplomacy developments. This review, at the word “review” just there, is already nearly as long as one of the six articles you’ll read daily on this app. Its brevity breeds pith and factuality. I find it a refreshing contrast against the backdrop of other news sources’ click-driven sensationalism or televised 24-hour news cycle propaganda. Stories do not employ irrational persuasive tools, neither plucking fears nor repeating the same claim over and over. Ads are rare, well-curated, usually gorgeously designed and targeted to executives or investors, and do not appear on news pages. (Content subject matter is 5/5 stars.) Headlines feature the occasional tasteful pun to motivate curiosity. The writing is superior though not always superb: sometimes the sentences are unwieldy or oddly structured. (Editorial quality is 4/5 stars.) Graphic design is minimal classicist: our grandparents’ timeless newsprint might look like this once reimagined as an app. Copy is poured amid vivid photos through stately color-block panels. In terms of user experience, this will merely tell you a few key things, then say “that’s all for today!” Sharing an article is easy. The UI is cleanly designed, a swipe left-to-right system tracked by an unimposing checklist-like feedback display of the user’s progress through the morning’s snippets. No glitch or mislaid element appears in this elegant program. (Design is 5/5 stars.)

I’ve always loved the Economist and have read the print version religiously for over thirty years. But their apps (and their subscriptions department) are truly terrible. This app will refresh only about 70% of the time. Every third day, good luck getting the news. It’s also the only app on my phone that regularly crashes. On my phone it looks fine, on my iPad it doesn’t expand to fill the whole screen (it’s “iPhone-sized” but in an iPad screen). The app won’t rotate from vertical to horizontal, even if Screen Aspect is unlocked. Finally, there are different versions floating around in the App Store, so you have to be careful about which one you are getting. My advice: stick to the print edition. (IF it ever shows up on the front doorstep, it’s a great read!)

If all you have each day is a few minutes and you’re tired of the 24hrs r new cycle mostly regurgitating the same info all day everyday, the Espresso helps distill the cacophony of news each day into a single powerful update. While I enjoy reading the short clips each morning I have really come to look forward to the quote of the day. It has been my favorite part for all the years I’ve been reading the Espresso. I enjoy checking the stories each day in Espresso but I do miss the ability to jump back to a day I missed (especially for the quote). I wish there was an archive of quotes of the day!