From breaking news to checking out the editorials, these apps can easily keep pace with the 24-hour news cycle we live in today. We have scoured the Windows Store and tapped a few apps ranging from official news apps to readers that pull news in from various sources for this collection. These are the best news apps for Windows 10.
Tickers
Tickers is a simple and easy way to keep track of the headlines generated by your favorite news source. You can create tickers from a news website, blog or social media channel. Once subscribed, headlines appear on the live ticker allowing you to share or jump to that site to read all the finer details.
Some of the key features include:
- App is optimized for low data usage.
- Customizable dark and light themes.
- Displays trending headlines.
- Support for push notifications to avoid missing that breaking story.
- Do not disturb feature for times you want to take a break from the news.
While you can use Tickers without creating a user account, if you do create an account your subscriptions can be synchronized between devices using the Ticker Cloud.
Tickers offers a very clean appearance and friendly user-interface, making it easy to pick up on the news of the day at a glance. From there you can pick and choose as you like to dig a little deeper by jumping to the website for the full story. Tickers is a free app, available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile.
Download from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
NPR One
NPR One is an audio news app that streams the latest public radio news and stories to your Windows 10 device. NPR One requires you to log into the app with your Microsoft, Facebook or NPR.org account. The app then locates your local NPR station for programing and allows you to listen in on the broadcast. When traveling, you can set the app to another local NPR station as needed.
NPR One's main display highlights the current story with the ability to view previously played items and view the upcoming stories. Each broadcast story includes options to mark the item as interesting (favorite) for easy reference, share the item and view the printed story via your local browser.
Stories and programming can be searched for archived content. This is a nice touch, allowing you to enjoy content on your own schedule. So, if you missed last week's installment of "Wait, Wait… Don't Tell Me", it's only a quick search away.
NPR One is a free app, available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile. While the NPR One app is a little dull to look at, it is a great source for audible news programming.
Download from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
Readiy
Readiy is a Feedly client app and one of the best news readers available for Windows 10 PC. It is a simple, no frill, fast and intuitive Windows 10 news app that not only supports your Feedly account, but also has support for Instapaper and Pocket accounts.
The main page lines up your most recent feeds with two menus in the upper left corner — up top are app commands like marking items as read, settings such as font size, and the share tools, and across the bottom are filters to jump between your news feeds, starred items, and "must read" posts. Other key features include:
- Multiple reading modes that include Instapaper, readability and inline browsing.
- Multiple themes (light, dark, gray and sepia).
- Live Tile support.
- Keyboard commands.
Individual articles can be tagged as favorite, saved to Pocket or Instapaper shared through email or launched in browser view. While Readiy is a feature-rich Windows 10 app, it lacks support for managing your feeds in-house and sends you to Feedly's website instead. It's not a deal breaker, but it would be nice to manage feeds within the app.
All in all, Readiy is an attractive and free news reader for Windows 10 PC and maybe one day we'll see a Windows 10 Mobile version come to light.
Download from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
Newsflow
Newsflow is an uncomplicated news reader for Windows 10 that brings all the news of the day to your PC and Mobile devices. The app downloads and stores RSS feeds locally, allowing you to read them at your convenience. The layout is clean and simple with Live Tile and notification support.
Stories can be shared, marked to read later or tagged as a favorite. Tapping on a headline allows you to expand the article in your web browser, an in-house browser or copy the link to the story. Additional features for Newsflow include:
- Search news headlines by keyword.
- Support for portrait and landscape orientation.
- Organize your news feeds into categories.
- Watch YouTube and HTML videos within the app.
Adding feeds to Newsflow is rather simple. If you do not know the URL, just use the keyword search to hunt down the source and tap the + button to add it to your list.
There no registration requirement for Newsflow, but the app has a backup/restore feature, making it easier to set up multiple devices. Newsflow also supports OPML import and export if you have the need to migrate your feeds to another reader. Newsflow may not win any beauty contests, but this Windows 10 app covers the basics rather well. It is a free Windows 10 app, available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile.
Download from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
CBS News
There are plenty of Windows 10 apps from the major news networks, but the CBS News app stands out from the pack. Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, the free CBS News app delivers the day's top stories, featured articles and full episodes of CBS News programs to the comfort of your PC or Mobile device.
While the layout still has that Windows 8.1 feel, it remains clean and filled with news images to illustrate the events of the world. A drop-down toolbar remains out of sight until needed and provides options to view the various news categories, view video news stories, access the CBS News lineup and search for news stories by keyword. Individual stories can be shared, bookmark and typography options are available to adjust the font size and style.
Along with the video clips, the CBS News app provides you access to full episodes of CBS News Programming such as the CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes, Sunday Morning and more. You also have access to CBSN, which is a 24-hour digital news channel from CBS. The CBSN channel provides live anchored news coverage, CBS News reporting and breaking news.
The CBS News app is a little dated, but continues to deliver the news to your Windows 10 device, much like the morning paper. The only thing missing from the CBS News app is the sports section. For that, you'll need to download the CBS Sports app (opens in new tab).
Download from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
If you have given any of these apps a try, let us know how things shook out. While these apps stood out from the pack, there are other quality news apps in the Windows Store such as the Guardian (opens in new tab), the Windows Central app (opens in new tab)(an excellent tech site from what I hear), the Wall Street Journal (opens in new tab) and Flipboard (opens in new tab). If you have a favorite news apps that wasn't mentioned, feel free to share your recommendation in the comments as well.
Update June 14, 2017: We have made a few changes to this article based on new releases, reader's input or staff discussion. There are some new titles in the mix, as well as those that we continue to view as the best from the Windows Store.