Rogue iCNN iPhone app offers speed and little else

CNN is known for delivering the latest headlines as news happens, and so does the iCNN app for your iPhone. But don’t get the two confused.

The iCNN app provides an instant feed of stories directly from the CNN Web site to your hand-held device. But the iCNN app is not operated by the news organization, which offers the official CNN Mobile app.

The iCNN app is a rogue app, if you will, which the developer claims delivers the latest CNN stories to you about one hour faster than the CNN Mobile app. With the iCNN app, you might have known that the balloon boy was safely in his parents’ garage an hour before other mobile users.

The app pulls stories directly from CNN’s Web site and feeds them to iCNN without the formatting and videos that CNN needs to incorporate for the iPhone. Hence, this app offers just text, and that does provide the obvious advantage of speed over the official CNN Mobile app. It displays stories as a long list of headlines with no categorical distinction between news, business or sports.

I’m not sure if the developer is correct in his claim of speed, but even so, getting news fast on the iPhone is a snap — just add a Tweeter feed. You can leave iCNN off your iPhone.

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