NewsBrain and CarPlay

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NewsBrain is a perfect app for CarPlay. It reads the news aloud. It is a newsreader in the same category as Flipboard, with two important differences. It uses a unique and superior neural network inspired method to find the most interesting articles for a user, and it will read the articles aloud if desired.

NewsBrain runs on iPhone/iPad/IPod Touch under iOS 7. It reads articles aloud using the iOS text to speech facility. It has settings allowing the user to adjust speech rate and what parts of the articles to read - headline, summary, full text, and so on. 

The screen shows the associated photo for each article if any, and optionally the article text it is speaking. The screen responds to touches such as tap to pause/resume, swipe left/right to skip to the next article or re-read the current one, swipe up/down to show/hide text and controls, and so on.

NewsBrain is an excellent audio app. It plays in the background and pauses when the audio output changes (as the Music app does, for example when you turn off your car or disconnect the headphones). It responds to audio remote controls (pause/play, forward/reverse, and so on). It plays over AirPlay or bluetooth speakers and works perfectly in the car. It ducks under other announcements such as those for Navigation. It places article information into Now Playing - article photos in the “album cover”, headlines into the “title” and so on.

NewsBrain would bring a new type of facility to CarPlay - the ability to read customized, personally interesting articles automatically gathered from across the Web. No other app does it like this. It works efficiently and with minimal, non-distracting controls.

NewsBrain is on the App Store, I hope you will try it out and see how well it works in the car right now, and how it would be an excellent addition to the CarPlay app suite.

NewsBrain is great for browsing on the iPhone or iPad, and with its ability to read aloud, is perfect to use while driving, commuting, jogging, or anywhere you can’t or don’t want to read text on the screen.