I want my MTV...app
Built for pop-culture mavens, MTV's new iPhone app serves up the latest news on everything from music to movies to gaming.
If you're over the age of, oh, 25, this may not interest you much. For you youngsters out there, however, this is, like, so totally cool: MTV just got its own app.
Free but ad-supported, MTV News serves up the latest pop-culture gossip--er, news--about music, movies, TV, celebrities, and gaming. It's available for the iPhone and the iPod Touch now; an iPad version is in the works.
You can browse breaking news in a fairly standard list view or a much cooler photo grid, which, when left alone for a few seconds, reverts to a kind of screensaver mode, jumping between photos and overlaying the accompanying headline. It's kind of pointless, but also kind of cool (not unlike MTV itself--hey-o!).
The app also lets you browse news by category and create a custom My News page with just the categories you want--again with the same cool list/grid viewing options.
Beyond that, the MTV News offers videos (but only of the news variety--actual music videos are MIA), photos, and access to roughly half a dozen MTV blogs.
Within the Photos section lies another nifty convention: you can finger-swipe through photos using a traditional Cover Flow-style view, or switch to a "tabletop" view where you slide stacks of photos around, arranging them scrapbook-style. Again: kind of pointless, kind of cool. (It'll be cooler still on an iPad.)
And that's about it. MTV News does give you the option of e-mailing stories to friends, but for now there's no Facebook or Twitter integration. Ultimately, it's a solid, polished app, one that's sure to appeal to teenagers. And, hey, it's free.