NPR News app: On demand news

NPR News Photo Credit: Angel Zagal

By Angel Zagal ’18

If you are in passionate for on demand news or are interested in listening instead of watching the news you are in for a treat. NPR has an app with all types of news on it ready for you to read or listen too. NPR stands for National Public Radio and is a popular news site in the United States. With the app being easy to use, having much content, and being a different way to inform yourself, NPR has done a great job with the app.

The app is by far one of the easiest to use by everyone. With no ads or video pop ups you get instant news easily. At the home page, top stories with all types of categories are shown to you. You click on an article and start listening or reading if you like. If you are not able to read or listen to the article you can add it to a playlist that you can reach anytime.

NPR has made it easier for people who have trouble viewing images or the font of the text. They can easily go to settings and choose their desired settings. Image quality is offered in high resolution or normal resolution. The font of text can be changed to small, normal, or large.

Another great addition to the app is the many different stories you can find. You can choose from five different categories, Hourly news, top stories, topics, programs, and stations. Within these categories there is even more content you can explore.

Hourly news is listening to the news currently on, top stories is the most viewed stories on the app. The topics section has ten different choices of topics to explore. Programs has three categories that within each one it has more topics. Stations is a category where you can find a radio station and tune into it. Everything can be found within a category bar at the top of the app.

This app has brought a different way to get informed not just by watching videos and getting distracted with all the images but just by simply listening to them. NPR has made the app in the simplest form possible. The  app does not include everything that a traditional news app will contain like ads and pictures that fill half the screen.

Critics state that the “app looks like it belongs in 2008.” They are not wrong that the app does not look like any other news app with bright colors and things that catch a reader’s eye, but the simplicity of the app make it easier to use. Many apps have many category bars and images flashing the screen, but that does not matter when you just want to listen to the news. One will not care how well an app is modernized as long as the content is there and it’s a reliable source. If people do not like the simplicity of it, NPR has another news app called NPR One that does essentially the same thing but it’s more modernized.

  • Cost: Free on Google play and Itunes.
  • App Size: 44.4 MB
  • Category: News
  • Rated: 4.5 out of 5 stars