Before mobile phones became popular, people read newspapers or watched television to know what was happening in their city, country, or the world. Smart folks used computers to surf news websites. iOS and Android OS-powered mobile devices are no less than desktop computers. Hence, it’s now possible to get news on any topic from any part of the world on our phones. The Android operating system is developed and maintained by Google, whereas Apple owns the iOS OS. Both companies have launched an App Store where you’ll find many news apps.
The news apps read RSS, aka web feed of websites, and present the stories in a beautiful interface. To do so, they use the internet connection on the phone. Below, I’ve covered the top news apps among the plethora of applications available on iTunes and Google Play Store. The apps will bring the latest stories to your phone in real-time.
Best news apps for Android and iOS devices
Google News and weather
Google News is one of the most trusted sources for news. It covers stories from around 75K major publications from all over the world. GN displays stories published on trustworthy websites. Hence, you won’t find fake news in this application. The Google News app for Android and iPhone/iPad has a special carousel feature that allows users to go through their favorite stories or any other interesting stories by swiping to the left or right direction on the screen.
Pages powered by Google AMP will open within a few milliseconds on your phone. The Google News app is easy to use. It makes users aware of the local weather. It supports two themes, dark and light. GN service is baked into the latest Android OS. To access it, swipe left on the home screen. Google News allows you to follow topics of your interest. It includes a toggle option to hide the weather information.
Twitter might be a microblogging site, but it is a great application to discover breaking or trending news. The microblogging service has a separate section for news where it displays news in a beautiful interface. It lets users comment on the posts. It also allows you to follow your favorite publications. When you follow a publication, Twitter will display the posts shared by the publication. For example, if you follow Fox News, Bloomberg, and Reuters, you’ll see news from these three publications when you log in to your Twitter account. You can sign up for Twitter with your phone number or email address.
BBC News
Unlike the above applications, the BBC is not a news aggregation service. It is one of the largest and most respected broadcasting companies globally. It has been operating since 1920. The BBC News app is popular in English-speaking nations. The content you’ll discover in this app is published by top-quality journalists. BBC News will ask first-time users to select their favorite topics so that it can recommend stories of your interest. It has a news recommendation engine that suggests stories related to the one you’ve recently read.
Must read: Best news aggregator apps
Fox News
Fox News is one of the most-watched TV channels in the world. If you want to get news from Fox TV, then install and run this application. FN supports live streaming of news videos. It lets you watch video news and read the latest stories simultaneously. Users can resize the video player in this application by switching the phone to landscape or portrait mode. If you are a fan of a Fox News journalist or a TV show, you can follow and get updates from them with this app.
Reuters
Reuters is one of the busiest news services in the world. If you check its official website or social media handles/profiles, you’ll learn that Reuters publishes 10 to 20 stories every half an hour. Reuters publishes various types of news from all parts of the world. It has stationed over 2000 reporters in 175+ countries. The Reuters app for Android and iOS supports offline reading, night mode, bookmarking, etc. It lets users disable images and choose the type of news they want to read. Reuters app has a dedicated section for stocks, currencies, commodities, etc. It enables users to subscribe to breaking news alert notifications.
Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a great app to keep yourself updated with the market and financial news. You can also read politics and technology news with this application. Bloomberg automatically displays the stories from your continent. If you want to read news about other countries, you can change your continent in the app. Bloomberg can automatically play videos when you’re using an active WiFi connection. It lets you increase the font size, bookmark or listen to stories, etc.
CNN
CNN is one of the most prominent and most respected news sources on the Internet. Like the Reuters application, CNN supports breaking news alerts. You can configure CNN to show alerts of news belonging to a category of your choice. The app lets you enable the “Reader Mode”. When you turn on this mode, CNN will only show text content instead of images and text in its feed. Stories displayed in the CNN app news feed may accompany a video. If you’re using WiFi to access the Internet on your iPhone or Android device, CNN will play the video automatically.
Apps like Fox News, BBC:
FB is a free magazine app used daily by 100000+ Android/iOS users. To get the latest updates on your mobile device with Flipboard, you must first choose the topics of your interest. Then, you must select the websites you’d like to follow. Flipboard will create a beautiful magazine from the publications/topics you’ve followed. You can create as many personalized magazines as you want with this application.
Flipboard has a search option through which you can find news on any person or place. It provides an option to save stories as a bookmark. Hence, you can go through your favorite stories later. Publications in Flipboard are added after a Flipboard employee personally reviews the websites. Thus, you’ll find only top-notch news portals in this app. This app allows you to go through local news in 20+ countries. It also lets you read international news. Flipboard offers a widget utility. It is one of the best news apps for Android and iOS devices.
Also see: Best Android download manager apps
Times of India
The TOI app for Android and iOS has been published by the Times group, the company behind the popular local newspaper, the Times of India. As TOI has several unique features and is owned by one of the top publication houses, it is the best news app in India. TOI lets users read news in brief. It has a live TV feature where you’ll find video coverage of a breaking story. TOI supports bookmarking of articles and offline reading. You can control what notifications you would like to see. Times of India supports night reading mode. It lets you download images, share stories, etc.
Other popular Indian news applications:
