NY Times Reader Beta for the Mac Debuts

In September of 2006, the New York Times released their ‘Times Reader’ for the PC. Times Reader is a desktop client for reading the New York Times the way it was designed to be read: as a newspaper. More accurate layout and typography makes reading the Times a much more enjoyable experience overall. The idea was to have a newspaper that arrived on your desktop each morning, preventing a trip to the front door in your favorite bath robe.

After much evolution and over a year and a half later, the Mac-compatible beta has finally arrived, with only a few weaknesses to be found.

After grabbing the beta of the Times Reader and running the installer, I was dismayed to find the following window:

Yes, the Times Reader requires Microsoft Silverlight to run. After being a little disappointed and set aback, I chose to install Silverlight (a link is presented in the installer), and I continued with the installation. After logging into my New York Times account (totally free to register), the Times Reader began to populate my first issue. It starts with the front page, and then continues updating all the other sections in the background. A simple preferences menu provides a way to control syncing with the Times website. After a short wait, the user is presented with the front page.

Notice the progress bar in the top right corner, and the progress (or lack thereof) represented. I did notice the first issue took quite a while to download, but I’m sure some of that was the archived articles it may have been retrieving. After finding an interesting article and selecting the headline, you are taken straight to the article view.

Notice the nice, clean, ad-free layout. This was the overall goal of the Times Reader, and I would argue they were successful in their efforts. The reader presents a clean and straightforward view of the paper, even more so than the actual paper publication itself. While many might wonder what the use of a standalone desktop version of a popular website might be, I have found myself reading through the Times Reader rather than either the website or an RSS feed.

Normally, the Times Reader requires a paid subscription after a 30-day trial period. The Mac beta does not have that same restriction. You can find the Reader here in the “First Look” section of the New York Times website. For those who haven’t installed Silverlight, you can find it at Microsoft’s Silverlight site or initiate the download when asked in the installer. Let us know in the comments what you think of the Times Reader, and whether this wave of standalone web-apps (both Silverlight and AIR based) are the wave of the future, or a temporary fad.