This post was published 9 months 8 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.

Last week I was asked to take a look at a new application for Smartphone’s called ‘Pocket Express’.  Briefly – the application is a free on-demand newsfeed.  Over the years (and when I say years I mean years) I’ve looked at various news programs.  I no longer remember the names of any of them (isn’t that funny?) Programs of this sort began to appear even before Windows was popular.  Anyone remember PUSH content? After awhile I stopped looking at these things because they just didn’t seem to measure up or were a hassle to use.

One of the reasons the newsfeed concept was problematic back in those days was because we simply didn’t have the "always-on" capability that the Internet now provides.  The systems back then depended on a dial-up connection which made it difficult to provide anything approaching real-time. Well, with a current-day smartphone and decent data plan the age of up-to-date newsfeed in your pocket is here.

Installation of the program is pretty easy.  Just go to the Pocket Express Website and click on "Get it Now".  You will be presented with a dialog into which you enter your mobile phone number.

After following the link to the download site simply install the utility on your phone and run it. 

This is the main screen to Pocket Express.  Notice that it is organized into 9 neat groups.  You will find that navigating this screen is very easy with the D-Pad.  The focus moves in a very intuitive fashion so it’s next to impossible to get lost in this application.

Drilling down into the News section…

Drilling down under "Top News"

Drilling down into an individual news report.  You will notice that the report will consist of a 2-paragraph (or so) synopsis of the story.  If you want to read the whole story just navigate down 2 clicks and onto the menu.  Across to "Full", click the center (Action) button and you’ll get the full story to read.

Pressing "Back" a few times takes you back up to the main menu.  Let’s look at weather.

Notice that my weather page is set to my home town.  The first time I ran the program it asked me for my Zip Code.  Since then it knows I’m in Deland, FL.  Of course this can be easily changed.

Clicking on the Weather forecast brings up a neat 7-day forecast panel.  Details can be had by navigating to any of them and clicking the action button.

Like so…

Below is the radar depiction of the area forecast.  While this wouldn’t be particularly useful WX for my flight planning it does at-least show me where the significant WX is.  I’d pretty much guess by this one that I wouldn’t wanna fly today!  (At least not in the ORL area).

Next we’ll look at Entertainment.  Note that this is also Zip Code oriented.

Plenty of stuff to check out under Entertainment.  Let’s see what’s playing at the movies.

A nice, concise list of current movies being shown.  Let’s go down and find out when and where we can see "Gran Torino".  (That was an interesting flick, BTW)

Very cool … in less than a second I can see where it’s showing both here in Deland and over in NSB and at what times.  Previously I had to either call the theater or find their website. (Which for some reason was offline some of the time).  The fact that I can see it in all places close by in one concise report is very cool.

I click on the Theatre and now get a list of what’s playing there besides the movie I just selected.  Click down once (oops … I show ‘Bride Wars’ here … but clicked down to "Gran Torino")

Now I get a quick and concise rundown on what the movie is about.

Some other stuff under "Entertainment" … Weird News.

Last, let’s find out how to get to the White House so we can go visit Obama.  (I won’t even go there!)

Simply enter the address of the White House…

And, presto.  I know exactly where it is.

Summary
This is an application that is going to stay on my Moto-Q.  After installing this program I have found myself spending far less time just browsing web pages because of all the content that’s available here.  Obviously I haven’t covered all this program can do but I’m impressed with how simple it is to use and how relevant the content is.  Very well organized.

Downside?  I haven’t actually found one yet.  The program updates frequently enough (configurable) that the content is pretty up-to-date all the time.  The screens are easy to read (even on a small screen like on my Moto-Q).

The best part of this one is it’s free.  I do believe there are some subscription services available as extensions but haven’t had the time to investigate that yet.  Most everything I need to look up on a regular basis is in here.  I would recommend this one to anyone with a compatible smart phone.

-CB

CodeBubba (12 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Software Developer for 30+ years. Pocket Device (Palm, Pocket PC) for 10+ years Private Pilot