Best News App for iPhone: The Top Picks on iOS in 2026
Apple News is the easiest news app on iPhone: it is preinstalled, and Apple News+ adds magazines and some paywalled newspapers for $12.99 a month. Ground News is the best iPhone app for comparing coverage across the spectrum, and Google News is the best free aggregator. Aplomb is the option for short videos from vetted newsrooms.
Disclosure: we make Aplomb, one of the apps on this page. We apply the same criteria to it as to every other app, we don't rank it first by default, and we never give it a score. Read our editorial policy.
iPhone News Apps at a Glance
| App | Best for | Format | Shows bias | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Apple News | Best for iPhone users who also want magazines | Articles, magazines and audio | No | Free; Apple News+ $12.99 a month |
 Ground News | Best for comparing coverage across outlets | Articles with bias and factuality ratings | Yes: bias and factuality per outlet, coverage split per story | Free; paid plans from $9.99 to $99.99 a year |
 Google News | Best free news aggregator | Articles | No | Free |
 Aplomb | Best for vertical video news | Short vertical videos | Trust tier on every story; bias ratings on each source profile | Free |
 AllSides | Best free app for left, center and right headlines side by side | Headlines and summaries from left, center and right | Yes: its own ratings for 800+ outlets | Free |
 SmartNews | Best free app for a quick scan, with local news | Articles | Political spectrum view on politics stories | Free with ads; ad-free option $3.99 to $4.99 |
 Particle | Best for AI summaries of each story | AI-written story summaries | Political spectrum view per story | Free; Particle+ subscription (price shown in the app) |
Want news as short videos instead of articles? Aplomb is the vertical video option.
How We Compared iPhone News Apps
- Fit on iPhone: availability on the App Store, and extras such as Apple News+.
- Source quality: who publishes the news you see, and how outlets are selected.
- Bias transparency: whether the app shows political lean or reliability.
- Price: what is free and what sits in a paid plan.
For the newsrooms themselves, see our list of vetted news sources and how they score on the media bias chart.
The Best News Apps for iPhone, Reviewed
1. Apple News: Best for iPhone users who also want magazines
Apple News comes preinstalled on iPhone, iPad and Mac and mixes articles from a wide range of publishers, picked by editors and by algorithm. Apple News+ ($12.99 a month in the US after a one-month trial, shareable with family) adds magazines and paywalled newspaper articles. It does not show bias or reliability ratings, and there is no Android version.
- Preinstalled on Apple devices
- Apple News+ bundles magazines and paywalled newspapers
- Family Sharing included with News+
- No bias or reliability information
- Apple devices only
- Much of the best content sits behind the News+ subscription
2. Ground News: Best for comparing coverage across outlets
Ground News groups articles about the same story from many outlets and shows how the coverage splits between left, center and right-leaning sources. Its bias ratings average the ratings of AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, and its factuality scores average Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check. The Blindspot feed highlights stories covered mostly by one side. It is the most complete tool for comparing coverage, but its top features sit in the paid Vantage plan.
- Shows the left, center and right split of coverage for every story
- Bias ratings averaged from three independent raters
- Blindspot feed and ownership information for each outlet
- Blindspot analysis, full coverage comparison and ownership data are listed as Vantage plan features
- Several overlapping paid plans, with prices that differ between the app and the website
- Articles only, no video
3. Google News: Best free news aggregator
Google News collects articles from thousands of publishers, ranked by algorithm, with a Full Coverage view that gathers many outlets' articles on the same story. It is free and works everywhere, but it does not label the political lean or reliability of its sources, and what you see depends on Google's ranking.
- Free, on every platform
- Full Coverage view groups many outlets on one story
- Very wide range of publishers
- No bias or reliability labels
- Algorithmic ranking you cannot inspect
- Mixes news with commentary from a very wide range of outlets
4. Aplomb: Best for vertical video news
Aplomb is our app, so read this entry with that in mind. It shows news as a full-screen vertical video feed, filled only with official videos from vetted newsrooms: wire services, public broadcasters and newspapers. Each story names the outlet and its trust tier, and links to the outlet's website. The day's main stories, in Today, also come with a short AI summary written only from the articles of the newsrooms covering them, with a link to each article. It is a good fit if you prefer watching to reading; it is not an article reader, and it does not compare coverage story by story.
- Only vetted newsrooms, no creator channels
- Short video format, one swipe per story
- Every video names the newsroom that published it
- Video first: no articles inside the app, only short summaries of the main stories
- Fewer sources than article aggregators
- Coverage depends on what each outlet posts as short video
5. AllSides: Best free app for left, center and right headlines side by side
AllSides puts headlines about the same story from left, center and right-leaning outlets next to each other, with a short summary on top. It is also one of the raters behind our media bias chart: its own bias ratings, built from blind surveys and editorial reviews, cover more than 800 outlets. It is free, and best for seeing how framing changes across the spectrum rather than for reading full coverage.
- Left, center and right headlines on the same story, side by side
- Free
- Bias ratings for 800+ outlets, with a published method
- Rates political lean only, not factual accuracy
- Covers fewer stories each day than a full aggregator
- Website-first: the app is a smaller part of the product
6. SmartNews: Best free app for a quick scan, with local news
SmartNews is a free, ad-supported aggregator that draws on thousands of publisher partners. In 2019 it added News From All Sides, a slider on politics stories that sorts coverage of the same event from more liberal to more conservative outlets, using lean labels set by its own content team. It does not rate factual reliability.
- Free, with a large publisher network
- Political spectrum slider on politics stories
- Local news sections
- Ads in the free version
- Lean labels come from SmartNews's own team, not independent raters
- No factual reliability ratings
7. Particle: Best for AI summaries of each story
Particle, built by former Twitter engineers, groups articles on the same story and writes a bullet-point summary with AI, with follow-up questions you can ask about the story. A spectrum view shows where the outlets covering a story sit on a left-right scale, and an Opposite Sides tool summarizes each side's position. Summaries are generated by AI, so check key facts against the original articles.
- Fast bullet-point summaries of each story
- Left-right spectrum view of the coverage
- Follow-up questions on any story
- Summaries are written by AI, not editors
- Spectrum data is deepest for US news
- Some features require Particle+
Try the news app built around vertical videoVetted newsrooms, the source named on every story, a link to each outlet's website.
More News App Comparisons
iPhone News App FAQ
What is the best news app for iPhone?
Apple News is the most convenient, since it comes preinstalled and adds magazines with Apple News+. Ground News is the best for comparing coverage across the spectrum, and Google News is the best free aggregator. Aplomb is the option for short videos from vetted newsrooms.
Is Apple News free on iPhone?
Yes, Apple News is free and preinstalled. Apple News+, which adds magazines and some paywalled newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, costs $12.99 a month in the US after a one-month trial. What an Apple News+ subscription includes.
What is the best free news app for iPhone?
Google News and AllSides are free with no paid tier needed. Apple News is free, with its best content in Apple News+. Aplomb is free.
Which iPhone news apps show bias?
Ground News, AllSides, SmartNews and Particle show the political lean of outlets or of a story's coverage. Apple News and Google News do not. See the best unbiased news apps.
