Apps that feed your nose for news
News junkies: Every headline is our toke, every cutline is our crack. A true news junkie doesn't stop at just one app, feed, or source; s/he wants them all. Thankfully, your iPhone or iPod touch can be your connection to news from your community and from around the world.
While RSS feed readers like Byline and NetNewsWire let you customize feeds tailored to your interests, there are dedicated apps for a wide variety of news outlets and subject areas.
If you prefer having everything in one place, a feed reader is tough to beat. However, if you want to avoid drinking from the firehose of information, one of these specific apps might be for you.
Next, we'll take a look at a veritable cornucopia of news apps for any interest.
Quick Links
Click the arrow icon (➦) to open up the App Store link for that app.
Newspapers and Magazines
Consumer Reports is an online edition of the popular ratings and product evaluation magazine. Provides information about cars, electronics, money, home and garden, babies and kids, safety, and health. Free. ➦
El Universal shares news from the most influential newspaper in Mexico, with content in Spanish. Free. ➦
India News Lite (➦) shows news from The Hindu, and is free. A paid version (➦) is 99 cents and includes more feeds.
Le Monde.fr is the iPhone app for Le Monde, France's largest national newspaper. Free. ➦
Marathi News displays content from the Maharastra Times. The author cautions that reading may be difficult, though, due to problems rendering Devanagari script. Free. ➦
Maclean's presents content from the magazine of the same name, Canada's national weekly newsmagazine. Free. ➦
The Munster Express brings you news from the newspaper of the same name for the Waterford, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland town. Free. ➦
NYTimes is the iPhone app for The New York Times, featuring content from the United States' third largest daily newspaper. It includes an offline browser and customizable toolbar for your favorite sections. Free, but ad-supported. ➦
USA Today shows news from the United States' largest daily newspaper. It includes headlines, scores, weather, and pictures from the print edition. You can also tweet a link directly from the app if you have Twitterrific (➦) installed. Free. ➦
Wire Services
The AP Mobile News Network, in an earlier incarnation, was one of the first apps to appear in the App Store. It offers local, national and world news, along with sports, video and more. Free, though it's ad-supported. ➦
Bloomberg provides stock quotes, news, and information for worldwide financial markets. Also lets you create a customized list of stocks that you can follow. Free. (Thanks, commenters!) ➦
Business Today provides business news in Russian from RIA Novosti. You can subscribe to up to 30 "channels" of news content, and support for other languages is coming soon. Free. ➦
Network Radio and Television
ABC News is a new release, showcasing ABC News video like top-of-the-hour news briefs, weather, and videos from your local ABC affiliate station. (Note that this is the American Broadcasting Company, not the Australian one.) Free. ➦
BBCReader, while not published by the BBC itself, is an offline browser for BBC content. It includes a slideshow mode, and adjustable font sizes. Free. ➦
CBS EyeMobile lets you browse CBS News content, citizen reports, and also share eyewitness photos with CBS News directly from your iPhone. Free. ➦
FOX News UReport lets you share eyewitness photos with the FOX News Channel straight from your iPhone. Free. ➦
NPR Mobile, while not officially from NPR, lets you browse NPR content by program, series, and on-air personality. You can also listen to NPR programs directly from the app. Free. ➦
PRI Program Stream lets you listen to programming from Public Radio International. Free. ➦
Television provides recorded news broadcast programming from the United States, UK, Australia, France, and Germany. Works over WiFi, but not over EDGE or 3G networks. $2.99. ➦
Local News
DC Alerts Near You, Right Now is a location-aware app that displays recent crime activity for the Washington DC metro area. It also shows recent permit applications, and construction projects near you. Free. ➦
iCoMo News provides news from KOMU-TV in Columbia, Missouri. Free. ➦
KnoxNews provides breaking news and community event information from the News-Sentinel in Knoxville, Tennessee. Also allows you to send eyewitness photos directly to the News-Sentinel from the app. Free. ➦
KPCC Radio streams public radio from Los Angeles. Free. ➦
WRNI Radio streams public radio from Rhode Island. Free. ➦
Industries and Special Interests
Charts shows you music, video, and game charts from over 35 countries. 99 cents. ➦
California Healthline provides a digest of news and editorial content from the California HealthCare Foundation, a philanthropy that campaigns for quality healthcare for low-income Californians. ➦
iAdviseMe displays up-to-the-minute security advisories for a variety of enterprise hardware and software platforms. Great for IT professionals. 99 cents. ➦
iHealthBeat is much like California Healthline, but includes health news from all over the country. It's also provided by the California HealthCare Foundation. Free. ➦
Mining Weekly is an iPhone-optimized version of Creamer Media's gemstone and gold industry magazine. Free. ➦
SAJA is an iPhone application that displays the latest trade news for the South Asian Journalists Association. Ideal for those interested in South Asia or the South Asian diaspora. Free. ➦
Seismic reports up-to-the-minute worldwide earthquake information from the U.S. Geological Survey. According to the app's description, this was a sample application provided to developers as part of the iPhone SDK. Free. ➦
TapMap Quakes uses the same USGS data source as Seismic, and displays earthquakes for the last 24 hours on a world map. $4.99. ➦
RSS Scrapers
There are very many RSS scrapers in the App Store. These apps tend to read a single feed, and present it in an interface that lets you browse stories and other content. These don't tend to be very highly rated, perhaps because of their one-trick-pony nature and (often) plain-jane interfaces.
ABA Journal (Free) ➦
Aftonbladet (Free) ➦
Aftonbladet TV (Free) ➦
AusGamers (Free) ➦
Australia News (99 cents) ➦
balsas.lt, with news from Lithuania. (Free) ➦
Blick, with news in German for Switzerland. (Free) ➦
B24 News Feed, while oddly-named, is an RSS scraper for UNICEF news. (Free) ➦
Canadian Business (Free) ➦
C-I.TV Media (Free) ➦
Counterknowledge (Free) ➦
Gamer News (99 cents) ➦
Haberci, with news from Turkey. (Free) ➦
Hot News scrapes RSS feeds, but will read to you with a text-to-speech engine. (Free) ➦
ITmedia (Free) ➦
iToday, with news from Singapore. (Free) ➦
Japanese News (99 cents) ➦
Latest Chatty, with news from Shacknews.com. (Free) ➦
Lifehack (Free) ➦
NASA Media Aggregator (99 cents) ➦
NATPE News (Free) ➦
newsnonews, in Japanese (Free) ➦
NU, with news from the Netherlands (Free) ➦
Russian News (99 cents) ➦
SAPO News, with news in Portuguese. (Free) ➦
SourceForge Network News (Free) ➦
TouchNews, with news from South Korea. ($3.99) ➦
WOW News, for you Warcraft fans (99 cents) ➦
TechReply.com has a variety of scraper apps for several countries in both free (but ad-supported) and Plus versions with no ads. The apps pick up national news feeds for the particular country.
