BBC News logo

BBC News for iOS

By BBC Worldwide Free Editors' Rating

Editors' Review

Download.com Staff Dec 20, 2011

BBC News is a well-designed app for browsing through stories and video from one of the world's most respected news sources. The app also prominently showcases BBC Radio, with a button for listening to live radio while you're browsing.

BBC News is one of the better news apps available, with an attractive and efficiently organized interface that's easy to navigate--and that reacts intelligently when changing between vertical and horizontal layouts. You can browse through headlines and thumbnail pictures around categories such as Top Stories, Technology, and Features & Analysis (you can easily scroll between and within categories with a quick swipe), with the main window displaying whatever story you've currently selected (which you can adjust the type size for, and share by e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter). You can also customize which sections appear in the app and in what order. Under "Watch/Listen," the app features the latest one-minute "World News Summary" and "Business Summary" videos, as well as the most recent audio for "World News Bulletin" (2 minutes) and "BBC Newshour" (60 minutes). You can also access news in eight other languages, including Arabic and Urdu.

This app isn't perfect: The ads are particularly annoying in the iPhone version (a paid version isn't available), and there's no robust support for offline reading--although the app does save text for all recent stories, so when you're on a plane, for example, you could read all the stories that had loaded while you were at the gate. That said, it's one of the best all-around news readers for the iPad, and a good value for a free app. We'd even pay a little to get rid of those ads.

Full Specifications

What's new in version 4.4.0

We are releasing regular updates to the BBC News app to optimize performance and enhance the user experience.

General

Release September 26, 2017
Date Added September 26, 2017
Version 4.4.0

Operating Systems

Operating Systems iOS
Additional Requirements Compatible with: iPad2Wifi, iPad23G, iPhone4S, iPadThirdGen, iPadThirdGen4G, iPhone5, iPodTouchFifthGen, iPadFourthGen, iPadFourthGen4G, iPadMini, iPadMini4G, iPhone5c, iPhone5s, iPadAir, iPadAirCellular, iPadMiniRetina, iPadMiniRetinaCellular, iPhone6, iPhone6Plus, iPadAir2, iPadAir2Cellular, iPadMini3, iPadMini3Cellular, iPodTouchSixthGen, iPhone6s, iPhone6sPlus, iPadMini4, iPadMini4Cellular, iPadPro, iPadProCellular, iPadPro97, iPadPro97Cellular, iPhoneSE, iPhone7, iPhone7Plus, iPad611, iPad612, iPad71, iPad72, iPad73, iPad74

Popularity

Total Downloads 2,575
Downloads Last Week 0
Report Software

Related Apps

Twitter logo

Twitter

Free
Twitter
Flipboard: News For Every Passion logo

Flipboard: News For Every Passion

Free
Flipboard: News For Every Passion
Newsroom - News that gets you talking logo

Newsroom - News that gets you talking

Free
Newsroom - News that gets you talking
Stitcher for Podcasts logo

Stitcher for Podcasts

Free
Stitcher for Podcasts

User Reviews

4/5
1 User Votes
5 Star
4 Star
3 Star
2 Star
1 Star

Developer's Description

The BBC News brings you the latest, breaking news from our trusted global network of journalists. Includes. My News is a newly introduced feature allowing you to personalise your news offering. Add topics wherever you see the + icon for a quick route straight to the stories you care about. Stories from topics you add will appear in your personalised My News feed. Here you can order stories by topic or time, and use the Manage Topics screen to stay on top of the news of the day. You can also switch the My News by Topic screen to a more traditional carousel view from the Settings screen. Find content fast. The app can suggest topics based on stories you've recently viewed and what's in the news now. And you can quickly find topics that interest you using the Topic Search. Choose from the familiar list of BBC News indexes such as Business, Technology, Entertainment and Health, or search for your own subjects of interest, whether they're people, places, things or themes. More of the news you care about. We now offer a fuller selection of stories from the newsroom, including: Most Read and Most Watched. Keep on top of popular stories across the BBC, regularly updated throughout the day. Live BBC World Service Radio. Expertise and insight from our journalists available 24-hours a day and ready to listen to in the background as you browse. Read the best journalism from BBC correspondents. Access to our full range of video and audio. Photo galleries and full-screen images. Apple Watch Support: Story summaries, glanceable headlines and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your wrist. Other features: Push notifications for breaking news stories. Video over cellular and wifi. Improved offline experience. Download the latest stories when you have a signal and then read them at your leisure. Viewing modes. On iPhone see more stories per index by choosing 'Compact layout' from the Settings screen. Settings to allow the app to automatically update in the background. Share stories to your social networks, or email/SMS to a friend. Support for dynamic text. The app will respect the font size in your device settings so you can increase or decrease the story text size as suits your preference. Related stories, related topics. Go deeper into a storyline with suggestions for further reading and viewing and a range of topics related to each story. If you choose to receive push notifications, a unique identifier relating to your device will be stored by ProcessOne on behalf of the BBC to provide you with the service. No other personal data relating to you (such as a username or email address) is processed. The BBC will keep your information secure and not share it with anyone else in accordance with the BBC's Privacy and Cookies Policy, available at http://www.bbc.com/privacy/. You can choose to unsubscribe from push notifications from your device's Notifications screen: locate the BBC News app icon from the list and turn off 'Allow Notifications'.
Promo image for CNET Shopping

Get the best price on everything

Shop your favorite products and we’ll find the best deal with a single click. Designed to make shopping easier.