I love Zite. Let me say this again, I love Zite! I like many others was a little worried when CNN purchased Zite. It appears our fears were unwarranted. Recently a new version of Zite was released that brings a much needed feature to the iPad - user profiles. While these user profiles will only work in Zite, it still means that those families that share an iPad to read the news, no longer have to share the same feeds. They call this update "Sybil."
Zite's multiple personalities allows each user to have a different reading experience. If mom enjoys reading arts and entertainment, dad enjoys reading sports and little Johnny is really only interested in all things Apple; Sybil has your covered! Each person can create a user profile and then Zite will remember that individual's preferences and reading choices.
Don't know what Zite is? Have you been living under a rock? Zite is a personal news aggregator that learns what you like to read and show you more stories around those topics. Not only that, if you have a preference in what sources that news comes from you have control to see more or less from that content provider. With this release you can even completely nix a provider from your reading experience.
I've used Zite since its original release to read the news of the day. Whether it be about technology or world news Zite makes it easy. Did I mention it looks pretty darn good too? Even better, if there is a story you like and want to keep for later or you just don't have time to read now - you can save it to Instapaper or ReadItLater. If you want to share what you have read with your friends, family and assorted followers on Facebook or Twitter - feel free, it's easy! There is even integration with Evernote, LinkedIn and Delicious.
The content is completely pulled down to your iPad making reading a very enjoyable experience as the content is formatted perfectly for the iPad. If the content creator won't allow them to suck down the article, you can read it from the providers site directly; but Zite takes even that a step further. When you are redirected to a website, you have the ability to just make it format using the "Reader" button.
Zite is a very well thought out app. It's easy to use and presents the reader with a wealth of information. The introduction of user profiles not only allows for multiple household members to use the same iPad to read the news, but it makes it possible now to save your profile and load it on another iPad by just logging into your profile. That way all the work you put into giving articles and topics thumbs up or thumbs down continues to pay dividends even if you are separated from your dearly loved iPad. Another benefit of user profiles, should one of the members of your household get lucky come Christmas and score their own iPad, they can quickly log into their profile and start right where they left off.
While we know Apple will never introduce user profiles on the iPad, Zites implementation may strike a cord with users and we might just see more apps for the iPad introduce this much needed feature.
If you haven't checked out Zite yet, I urge you to do so. It's a great app and best of all IT'S FREE! (Download Today - iPad Only)
Read Zite's Blog Posting About The Update - They Call It Sybil.