World In The Hands App Review

World In The Hands  Price: Free For: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch3rd generation/4th generation, iPad World in the Hands, by Pascale Montagne, is an app that strives to occupy the intersection of Google Maps and Google News (or create that intersection). The interface displays a globe that can be rotated to view any part of the planet. Users can click on any country and the screen displays an aggregation of new sources from or about that country, as well as local time and weather. The interface also has links to Twitter, Wikipedia, and Google Maps. As you click on another country, you can see the rate of currency exchange compared to the last country, as well as the distance between the two. The most obvious drawback to the app is that it is way too slow. Moving from country to country involves a long lag time. I tried using the Google Maps link on several locations and the map only loaded once—before that I could only tell by the screen interface that it was Google Maps. Another issue is the zoom feature, which works like a rubber band; you can zoom by pinching the screen, but as soon as you release your fingers the globe moves back to its usual size (this only applies to the globe on the app; when you can actually access Google Maps, the zoom feature works). World in the Hands is not a conventional news app, and is not really suited for the conventional news consumer. It is, however, an interesting tool for gathering local news on places with which the conventional consumer may be unfamiliar—Central Asia or Africa, for example. Then again, why not search Google News? The main challenge for this app, as with so many other apps, is to do something Google has not already done, or vastly improve on one of its features. In this case, one way would be to expand its focus on local news sources, in original foreign languages and translations. Another way would be to partner with Google to completely integrate WITH’s map-to-news format with Google Maps.