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Headlines Brings News to Your Home Screen
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. Apps don’t always have to focus on cramming in the highest number of features possible. Instead, it…
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. Apps don’t always have to focus on cramming in the highest number of features possible. Instead, it can pay to focus on one or two great ideas and them implement them as best as possible. With that in mind, say “hello” to Headlines. The laser-focused app that brings so much great news direct to your Home Screen.
With iOS 14, Apple brought true widgets to iPhone. Ones that could live right on the Home Screen. In iPadOS 15 that is due to be released later this fall, widgets will arrive on the iPad’s Home Screen too. Apple does have its own News widget but it is fairly limiting in what it can do.
Enter: Headlines.
Headlines offers up six different widget designs that look phenomenal. They’ve got little touches like the current local weather, a source’s icon, and lovely edge-to-edge thumbnails. These widgets don’t just look better than Apple’s, they’re also more feature-packed. Oh, and the widgets have both a light mode aesthetic as well as a dark mode option so no matter your phone’s theme, the widgets will look their best.
When you open a news item, they can be read in the Headlines app. It acts as a full-fledged news app, and all changes and articles you’ve read will sync across your devices via iCloud. Speaking of feeds, there are a ton to choose from here.
In Headlines, there is a huge array of feeds that you can pick and choose from. You can search for your go-to news or you can browse. A featured topics page — complete with modern line icons — breaks the sources into popular categories.
Once you’ve picked some feeds and sources you like, you can create your own tags. Perhaps a tag for “food.” Go through and choose all sources that makes sense for that tag. Tags don’t have to be around the topics either. Maybe one for “relaxing” that has a bunch of stories from sources that cover cooking, traveling, photography, and other topics to chill your mind.
With a paid subscription, you unlock unlimited feeds to add to the queue as well as bonus icons. There’s also mute filters and instant article translation for that monthly (or one-time) fee.
Widgets are one of my new favorite things and as an avid news reader, finding a widget that can beat Apple’s was near the top of my list. Headlines is both better-looking as well as more powerful. That checks all of my boxes and if it sounds like it checks yours, go give it a shot.
But enough about other people's apps.
