The best of msnbc.com on your Windows 8 desktop
msnbc.com is a slick app from the news service that allows you to access the best of the website’s content from your Windows 8 desktop.
The good
msnbc.com looks great, and is clearly designed to take advantage of Windows 8’s Metro interface. In fact, the developer states that it is aimed at tablet devices (although it works just fine on a PC), and you can certainly see why. msnbc.com is crisp, clear, beautifully laid out and, best of all, supports scrolling and semantic zoom (pinch to zoom, or ctrl +scroll with a mouse), which make browsing a pleasure.
The bad
On the downside, msnbc.com doesn’t really bring anything revolutionary to Windows 8, and really feels like it is performing below its potential. It doesn’t allow sharing (a major aspect of news these days), and sometimes the content doesn’t fit pages well, meaning that they clearly haven’t got the best formula for all formats quite right.
The balance
As a result, we’d have to qualify msnbc.com as OK, but not great. If the developer sorts out the display options and sharing features, it could be a good app. If these improvements were made AND the author managed to add something truly interesting, then it might just be great. We’ll just have to wait and see.
msnbc.com – a promising app that unfortunately doesn’t quite seem to be reaching its full potential.
