Yahoo’s iPhone app updated with Summly news story summaries

A month after acquiring Summly for $30 million, Yahoo has updated its iPhone app to include the technology developed by the startup.

The new app, released Monday, shows users short, paragraph-long summaries for news stories using the technology Yahoo acquired when it purchased the startup founded by 17-year-old British entrepreneur Nick D’Aloisio.

Users can turn on the Summly-like synopses by tapping on the three-bar icon on the top left of the app and then switching the toggle for “Visual” from “Off” to “On.” This will show users headlines and photos for news stories as well as short summaries for some articles. Users can tap on the screen to read the full versions of each story.

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The new Yahoo app is the first we’ve seen of Summly’s technology since the free iPhone app was pulled from the app store last month after being acquired. Summly was launched in 2011 by a then 15-year-old D’Aloisio, who built the iPhone app in his London bedroom.

Summly was designed to summarize new stories into small tidbits fit for the small screens on smartphones, and that’s the tune Yahoo is sticking to for its Monday app update.

“Beautifully designed with smaller screens in mind, the new Yahoo is all about delivering the best of the Web -- right on your phone,” the company said in a blog post Monday.

Besides adding story summaries, the updated app has also been enhanced to better predict the types of stories users are interested in. At the bottom of each article, users are shown topics. They can tap on a check mark for topics they would like to see more of and tap on an X for topics they would like to see less of.

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