The West Seattle Herald iPhone App was released on Thursday Oct. 7 and the newest version, now up to 1.3 is faster and easier to use, and it's still FREE.

The splash screen (the first thing that appears when you start the app) flashes on briefly then opens to the News Headlines. The top 12 most recent stories appear. You can link to the web page in question to see slideshows or videos directly from the app.

As before the app gives readers direct access to the Herald's full Flickr Photo Gallery, containing the best images from news stories we have covered over the past year, plus a direct in-app viewer for the West Seattle Herald YouTube Channel where you can see our standalone video stories.

But beyond those features you'll find that you can use the app to submit news stories to the Herald through a service called 360 News. The feature lets you take or use an existing photo, or video, and submit it directly to the Herald through the app itself. This solves the problem of attaching photos or videos or trying to find the right email address, it's all built in.

Another useful feature the app permits is 'Push Notifications' which appear on your screen in the event of breaking news. This feature is not used for standard news stories or features. Instead, it's reserved for news that has a shorter time value or that is still a developing story.

You can download the app for your iphone here OR for any Android phone by searching in the Android Market.