News & Magazines
SmartNews: Breaking News
A news aggregator drawing on AP, Reuters, Bloomberg and others, with points earned for reading.
Get the app
Opens the official store page
- Developer
- SmartNews, Inc.
- Score
- 4.6
- Downloads
- 100K+ ratings
- Age
- Rated 12+
- Version
- 26.11.10
- Price
- Free
Screenshots
About this app
A news aggregator at heart, SmartNews gathers stories from a long list of publishers (AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Verge, USA Today and many more) and sorts them into channels you can flick through quickly. It's for people who want one feed instead of six apps, and who'd rather see several outlets on the same story than a single take. Any article can be translated with a tap into Spanish, Chinese and other languages. Local channels surface traffic, weather and government news for wherever you are, and the politics section deliberately mixes sources from across the spectrum. There's also a rewards scheme: reading articles and finishing daily missions earns points that convert into retail gift cards or charity donations. The rewards programme is limited to legal residents of the United States and may not be offered in every region. The app itself is free.
SmartNews: Breaking News: the full guide
What the app is
One feed instead of six apps. SmartNews pulls stories from a long roster of publishers, among them Bloomberg, AP, The Verge, Reuters, USA Today and The Atlantic, and arranges them into channels you swipe through. The appeal is seeing several outlets on the same story rather than one outlet's angle.
A tap translates any article, Spanish and Chinese among the target languages; local channels cover weather, traffic and what the city council is doing, and the politics channel intentionally draws from outlets on both sides. A rewards scheme pays points for reading articles and completing daily missions, convertible into gift cards or charity donations, though only for US residents.
How it works day to day
Morning coffee is a swipe through the top channel, then a flick sideways to local news for the commute forecast. A story that matters gets opened in two or three outlets to compare the framing. Someone learning Spanish taps translate on an article to practise. US users notice a points tally climbing as they read and knock off the daily missions, and every so often cash it in for a gift card. Evening is a lighter pass through entertainment and lifestyle channels.
Why people look for it
Readers tired of juggling several news apps, or of a single outlet's slant, search for an aggregator and find SmartNews among the best-known. The translation feature pulls in language learners and immigrant households reading in two languages. The rewards programme is a genuine curiosity draw in the US: getting paid, even modestly, to read the news.
Look and feel
Five screenshots are provided, likely the channel tabs across the top with a card feed below, a local channel, the translation feature and the rewards screen. Aggregators like this favour dense headline cards with thumbnails and swipeable channel tabs for fast browsing. The listing doesn't mention colour scheme or dark mode, though the emphasis on quick flicking suggests a lightweight layout.
Updates and upkeep
The version string 26.11.10 looks as if it could be date-based, which would mean a very recent release and a brisk update schedule, though that's a reading of the number rather than a stated fact. SmartNews, Inc. is a substantial company, and the 4.6 rating comes from more than a hundred thousand reviews. Only an App Store link appears on this page.
