The new AI-powered Google News app is designed to help you find news stories you'll be interested, and make sure you get accurate reports from credible sources.
The app was announced at Google's 2018 IO conference, and is now live for iOS and Android. It replaces Google Play Newsstand.
What is the new Google News app?
The new Google News app is designed to keep you up to date with current affairs, with stories from trustworthy sources.
It opens with a Briefing, which is a list of five stories that you should find interesting based on your preferences and location.
There's also a list of Headlines, which is a mix of news across various categories, such as sports, tech and business.
For each story, the Google News app curates a collection of stories, pictures and video showing you a variety of perspectives from around the web. It can also put together a timeline so you can see how events have unfolded so far. Google calls this 'Full Coverage'.
The Google News app also lets you subscribe to online publishers that rely on paywalls and premium subscriptions, and read their content in Google's mobile-friendly AMP format.
How does it work?
Google announced the new app at its 2018 IO conference, revealing that it would use machine learning to surface interesting stories from trustworthy publishers.
Over time it learns your preferences based on the briefings you choose to open, and will build up a picture of your interests that it can use to find more news that will appeal to you. It can also learn from topics and sources that you mark as favorites, and searches you perform.
Google hasn't explained how it determines which news sources are reliable, but it says they are curated.
What platforms is it on?
The Google News app is available for both Android and iOS (for both iPhone and iPad), replacing Google Play Newsstand. Note that to use the iOS version, you'll first need to install Google Chrome.
Is it different to Apple News?
Yes, in some ways. Unlike Apple News, Google News pulls in tweets about stories, which are often a good way to learn about news as it breaks. Google News also gives you the same story from multiple outlets, including some you'd never normally see, giving you a more balanced picture.
There is a downside, though: unlike Apple News, Google News takes stories directly from the publisher's website, including any ads on the original page.
What about Google News and Weather for iOS?
Google News and Weather seems to be sticking around for the time being, but we wouldn't be surprised if it's deprecated some time in the future, or tuned into an app exclusively for weather.
