A year in the life of FT Edit 🎂

It feels like only yesterday that we launched FT Edit to see if we could curate the best of the FT’s in-depth reporting and analysis into a more focused reading experience.

But today is our first birthday.

So we thought we would tell you a few things we have learnt over the past year, share our favourite stories, and give you a sneak preview of some of the treats we have coming up.

And if you haven’t tried us yet, you can download the FT Edit app for iPhone and iPad here.

The biggest hits

We wanted FT Edit to be calm and simple, allowing you to read without any distractions. And clearly you all love reading, because the most popular article this year was the Best Books of 2022, chosen by FT experts.

In second place was our San Francisco team’s article from January on how Elon Musk was struggling to make his debt repayments on Twitter.

And in third place was a piece we published very soon after our app launched, during the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, about how Finland has a plan if Russia ever attacks. It’s still a great read.

And it seems the past 12 months have been all about tightening our belts. Your top three most-read topics this year were: the cost of living crisis, Brexit and unemployment.

FT Edit in numbers

In our first year we had 120,000 downloads from the Apple App Store.

The articles we featured were read over 5mn times, and you saved 104,621 articles to read later.

The busiest reading time on the app is 7am (it’s 8am at the weekend).

And FT Edit has been downloaded all across the world, in 211 countries and territories.

What is coming up

Our next big series, World on a Plate, starts on April 3, in which we will be revealing our insider guide to eating like a local around the world.

We’re also working on a range of new features for the app, including improved tools for sharing articles with your friends, and ways for us to tell you more about why we have selected that day’s articles.

If you are enjoying the app, we would be very grateful if you took the time to leave us a review on the App Store. This will help other people as they try to decide whether to download the app.

If you are not enjoying the app, or if you have any requests for features, please email us at ftedit@ft.com and we’ll see what we can do.

Our favourite pieces this year

I remember how depressing it was at the end of the summer last year. The war of attrition in Ukraine was grinding on; Liz Truss was about to become prime minister; energy prices were rocketing. So we asked David Hindley, our researcher, if he could cheer us up. Was there anything to be happy about? David came back with this piece about five amazing scientific breakthroughs that had happened in 2022. It was a huge hit on FT Edit, and while the news then proceeded to get worse (Liz Truss became prime minister etc), I could always reread this article to reassure myself that progress is always happening.
Malcolm Moore (@malcolmmoore)
Editor, FT Edit

Bear with me on this one, but my undoubted favourite story of the year was this fabulous examination of the rise and fall of watercress. Filled with wonderful detail (in the 19th century the plant was so central to working-class diets it was branded “poor man’s bread” and bunches of the stuff were sold as street food), the piece was a perfect example of the nuggets of joy we aim to sprinkle throughout FT Edit.
Hannah Rock
Deputy editor, FT Edit (@HannahRockFT)

There’s no series within the FT as singularly entertaining and filled with revealing character details as Lunch with the FT. Any actor attempting to conjure a person of grand importance should start by studying their Lunch interview. My favourite iteration from the last year has to be Janine Gibson’s interview where she says of her subject near the top of the article: “Piers Morgan could start an argument in an empty room”. She then details each time he tells her she’s wrong, leaving you with the feeling that you’re sitting across from him and panic eating along with her.
Caryn Wilson
US editor, FT Edit (@CarynAWilson)

Like a lot of you, I have been fascinated by the breakneck speed at which generative AI has pushed itself into our lives. Tools like Dall-E 2 can produce ultra-detailed drawings in seconds, and ChatGPT can write poetry. So Richard Water’s story on how the new era of machine learning will change our lives has been essential in understanding the limitations and challenges of today’s AI and how the technology may develop in the near future.
David Hindley
Researcher, FT Edit (@DavidHindleyFT)

My favourite story was about MI6’s top female spies. Helen Warrell’s unprecedented deep-dive into this fascinating world reminded me of the first time that I saw the huge SIS building in Vauxhall, central London. I had an odd feeling while waiting for a night bus there, knowing that great secrets were held inside. But maybe the lives of the people working there aren’t so different from our own.
Aru Fukuda
Senior Data Analyst, FT Edit