News

RealizD tracks how much time you spend on each social media app on your phone. It helps visualize your daily screen time, while also helping set goals for how much time you want to spend on social media, games, etc. The app also shows how much data is used on what apps at one time. With such hectic schedules and deadlines, journalists need to be great at time management, so this app helps keep us accountable. Available on Apple and Android. — Daria Jenkins 

Storm It is a tweetstorm app that allows users to type multiple tweets before pressing a single button to tweet them simultaneously. This app could be useful to journalists who want more characters or who need to tweet in threads. It also makes it easier to compose, manage, save and preview multiple tweets at a time so that the journalists’ information is better organized. Despite several good reviews, the app does not have many functions, and some do not work or are glitchy. Available on Itunes and Google Play. — Jessica Ferrigno

 CircleMe consists of a motley collection of news stories. I didn’t see a single article in my feed that I was interested in or that seemed important. Instead, I got stories about cars from a Shanghai car show, self-promotions from a company called Starlight PR and a link to the Forbes welcome page. Additionally, some of the top-listed articles were years old. The app runs well enough and the layout is certainly user-friendly, but for journalists the obscure and outdated content detracts from the point of having a news app. It’s available on Google Play and iTunes. — Leah Soto

 AP News, “where the news gets its news,” helps users stay up to date with The Associated Press and other trustworthy news sources. Easily explore local, national and global news. Enable notifications and save favorite news stories. In comparison to other news apps, AP News is usually first at getting news out. Another good feature: news is readable in both Spanish and English. Journalists can utilize this tool to quickly be notified of breaking news. The app is available for both iPhone and Android. — Nisa Ayral

 SmartNews says it can give you all the “relevant” news in one minute. This free mobile news app searches millions of articles for the day’s top stories. The app’s simplicity is a plus. With bold headlines and clever colors, everyone can find their way. The “discover” page streams new and unique content, allowing users to sample different types of journalism. The app’s “SmartView” technology promises fast content delivery, even without wifi. Other reviews tout SmartNews is an “excellent news app,” with a user-friendly base. — Dillion Eddie

Google Play Newsstand, originally known as Google Currents, is a source for news updates, including hard news, entertainment and science, available online and through an app. The readings are categorized by interest, and though each provides information in both news and magazine form. Most of the content has a fee, ranging from $1.99 to $5.99. If you’re cheap (like I am), this could pose a problem. The hard news section is free, within limits, making it a better choice for journalists on a budget. Keep your favorite sources in one place using “My Newsstand.” — Nisa Ayral

 Intuitive. Powerful. Fast. Inoreader has blown the competition out of the water as an RSS Reader. Unlike the popular app, Feedly, Inoreader gives all of its users unlimited source subscriptions. It also gives users the ability to read as much as they need, helps them stay organized, and search for any topic in seconds; most RSS Readers don’t offer these for free. Unfortunately, the free version does have some limitations and ads, but the app also offers two paid versions that will let you access the rest of Inoreader’s features. — Cat Supawit

 Bigvu is the future of mobile reporting. With only a phone needed to record a video package, journalists will enjoy the this app. Bigvu allows you to record video, use a teleprompter, share to all social media, and more. Available free on both Google Play and the App Store, IJNet’s review shows the features and functionality in detail. Journalists can use this as a breaking news tool. I plan to keep using it myself. — Cole Feinbloom   

 Timeline, available on iOS and mobile web, is a news app with a twist: it connects past and present. Unlike most news sources, which merely provide the latest headline, this app lets users “travel through time” as they read the historical context of current events. Its uniqueness makes it almost incomparable. Other positive reviews say only Flipboard is as customizable. This could be useful to journalists who want more than a surface level understanding of a story or are doing their own research. With Timeline, they have a way of quickly and visually getting the story beyond the headlines. —  Nisa Ayral

 Breaker is a new free podcast app. It was released March 20, 2017 and it is available for iPhones. You have access to hundreds of podcasts. While you play a podcast, you can use other apps. For example, I listened to a podcast called Space, by Twenty Thousand Hertz and was on Instagram at the same time. This app is beneficial to journalists who want to become involved in podcasting or who want to gain knowledge on certain subjects. — Julia Bashaw