Google News & Weather is a free app designed to give you access to more than 65,000 news sources, both globally and locally, as well as weather for your current location and any locations you specify.
It's basically a lift from the Google News pages, put into an app format. If you're happy with Google News on the web, you'll like it. If you want something more, Google News and Weather isn't going to cut it for you.
When the app launches, you get your local weather up at the top of the screen, and then a sampling of news headlines below. Tap on one and you get the story, and at the bottom you will see headlines for related stories that you can click on. It's easy to re-order the topics and delete subjects you don't want. The app also grabs local news based on your location, and you can add other locations of interest too.
My main issue with this app is the formatting of stories. Unlike Zite or Flipboard or the AP app and many others, Google News just gives you a browser-based view of the original story. There's no formatting to fit the iPhone or iPad, and no consistency of text -- it's just not a pleasant experience. There is basic personalization in that you can select topics of interest as noted above, but the app does not learn from your selections.
Google News & Weather also fails to take advantage of Apple's new iOS 8 widget feature, which surely would be nice to have. The app delivers news and weather, but other apps do these tasks better and with a bit more flair. This seems like the result of a rush job and could be much better if more thought is put into the presentation of information. The info Google provides is fine -- it just isn't superior to other news solutions.
Google News & Weather requires iOS 7 or later. It's universal, and optimized for the iPhone 5, 6 and 6 Plus.
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