# SmartNews: Breaking News — user reviews > 1,595 indexed App Store user reviews of SmartNews by SmartNews, Inc., rated 4.60/5 from 928,725 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/smartnews-breaking-news/id579581125/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/smartnews-breaking-news/id579581125.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 716,969 · 4★ 132,765 · 3★ 43,250 · 2★ 13,242 · 1★ 22,499 ## What do users think of SmartNews? Overall sentiment: neutral **Pros** - 💯 Excellent news app - 🌐 Wide variety of news sources - 🔍 Customizable news feed - 📰 Comprehensive news coverage - 🔖 Useful feature to save articles for later - 🧠 Smart news curation **Cons** - 📢 Excessive and intrusive ads - 🤖 Biased or unreliable news sources - 🔄 Frequent app freezes and crashes - 🔋 High battery consumption - 🔍 Lack of customization and filtering options - 📌 Inability to remove unwanted news sources **Commonly reported bugs** - Notifications not working as expected - Articles not loading properly - Scrolling issues and lags - Inconsistent app behavior across devices **Most requested features** - Ability to permanently block unwanted news sources - Option to view news in chronological order - Improved local news coverage - Offline reading mode - Enhanced sharing capabilities ## Newest reviews (17 of 1,595) ### 3/5 — opinion *2026-09-01, version 26.8.50* I try to seek real news … not someone’s opinion of what happened. Many of your articles are pure opinion in this very”political world” of ours. I don’t think I have read even one supportive article of anyone in the trump administration. No politician is “all bad” unless that is your goal objective. . ### 2/5 — What’s with the music? *2026-08-29, version 26.8.30* Overall, I like this app however, recently there have been stories I wanted to read, but this very loud music continues to play. Scrolling through there there’s no way to determine where it’s coming from or how to turn it off. If anybody has any insight as to what this is from and how I can disable it, I would really appreciate it. ### 2/5 — Log in never, ever works *2026-08-29, version 26.8.30* As you accrue points for reading the articles, you can never actually use them. Why? Because, you cannot log in to verify your phone #. This has been ongoing for 3+ months now. This appears to be a scam. ### 2/5 — Great idea but buggy (UPDATED) *2026-08-28, version 26.8.30* UPDATE: I fixed the issue where the phone gets super hot and drains the battery. Had to install an ad blocker on my phone! I downloaded NextDNS and set up a free profile. Have been using the app for about five minutes now (where my phone would get very warm and the battery would drain) and it’s now cool to the touch! Sounds like all those ads in the background were the culprit. I like the app for diverse content of news. Nothing I’ve seen so far comes close. Unfortunately after about 10-15 min the app slows my entire phone down to where everything locks up and the phone gets VERY hot. I don’t have anything else open and when I can finally close out of the app the phone immediately cools down and goes back to normal. I love the selection of news but they’ve really got to figure out the heat issue. ### 3/5 — Intrusive add icons *2026-08-26, version 26.8.30* I understand that adds pay for the service, but they are place in a way that cause right handed users on a smart phone to accidentally open them. You have the best news aggregator app available. But aligning the adds to the left so right handed users don’t constantly open them unintentionally would make your platform more fluid. Also, the adds being double size to the news boxes makes it almost impossible to browse by them without accidentally opening them. Maybe this is intentional but it makes using the platform frustrating. ### 2/5 — Popups again *2026-08-25, version 26.8.30* Mostly garbage news sources these days. And full page popups are back. Nope nope nope. Delete. Update: Developers respond to requests, so that's nice. Wanted to be able to block specific publishers to try and limit the fluff and sure enough they added the feature. Current issue keeping me from using the iPad app at all now, and to some degree the iPhone as well, is the damn gamification popups. I'm sorry but if people need some reward for just reading the news perhaps news isn't your thing. In an effort to get people to read more they actually have me reading significantly less. Probably not the outcome they were going for. Gonna have to have a toggle to turn it off before I'm back to using the app much. ### 3/5 — Over heated *2026-08-18, version 26.8.30* I like it but it heats up my phone for one. And another thing, it goes to another page when I haven’t clicked on any page ### 2/5 — Too Biased *2026-08-17, version 26.8.10* SmartNews seems very biased in their news coverage. SmartNews must really despise Donald Trump with a negative slant on every news story related to him. Was hoping for better. ### 2/5 — Ads *2026-08-16, version 26.8.10* So many news stories that are really ads, and it’s gets worse. They also added gamification…trying to reward you with meaningless points for reading which, coincidently, started with the last update that brought us more not-news. I should point out that the 4.6 rating (Aug 2026) is probably from old reviews when the app version that I liked was customer friendly. ### 2/5 — Impossible to use. Will not scroll! *2026-08-15, version 26.8.10* Locks up ### 1/5 — Sometimes not real news *2026-08-13, version 26.8.10* I read an article today from “Knewz”. The article only had what was said by RFK Jr and there were no rebuttals to the contrary. No facts. Please do better. ### 2/5 — Politically Biased *2026-08-12, version 26.8.10* Decided to try this news app again to receive extra points from FETCH. Many entertaining current affairs stories but all of the political news articles I read are so obviously heavily skewed to the left I deleted the app. Reminds me why I deleted this app years ago. ### 2/5 — Can’t read articles, iPad locks up *2026-08-12, version 26.8.10* So annoying. Try to scroll and ads cause lockup ### 1/5 — Truthblue *2026-08-11, version 26.8.10* Nothing but liberal sources. Nothing but bias and propaganda. This is a propaganda site. Not news. It would be news if it had conservative and liberal sources. Garbage in, garbage out. Don't get it. ### 2/5 — “SmartNews” *2026-08-10, version 26.8.10* Meanwhile,from the titles of most of the articles alone, (even with just business and finance as topics followed) there aren’t many brain cells being fired here. ### 3/5 — It was good but it’s a battery killer. *2026-08-09, version 26.8.10* It’s a fairly good news aggregate but it used 27% of my battery in 37 minutes of reading today. It’s got to go whatever it’s doing jamming up the processor getting the phone hot. Sometimes I like to read statewide news stories but the local tab I use it for is local to the entire state of Ohio. ### 1/5 — Used To Be… *2026-08-09, version 26.8.10* I loved this app, it to be great! But recently that started embedding files that keep pulling me away from what I was reading. Who the hell’s bright idea was that. You were great, now you just SUCK. I’ll get my new elsewhere! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Overheats phone *2026-09-01, version 26.8.50* Is this app mining bitcoin? If I have it open for more than 5 minutes my phone starts getting hot. ### 1/5 — WTF is with the TWITTER embeds? *2026-08-29, version 26.8.30* Can no longer read the articles because of repeated Twitter embeds taking over the page. This repeats over every article. Are you owned by Musk now? ### 1/5 — Twitter embeds and unauthorized scans of my face - for who knows what?! *2026-08-27, version 26.8.30* Why can’t you stop this ### 1/5 — Jerusalem Post *2026-08-24, version 26.8.30* 30% of all articles come from the (genocidal) Jerusalem Post. "Smartnews" took their dirty money, so you can't block them. ### 1/5 — Video “option” *2026-08-24, version 26.8.30* I have seizures and I can’t be exposed to constant flickering content. There’s no tab to stop them so I may have to stop using your app. ### 1/5 — Very Prejudicial *2026-08-20, version 26.8.30* I am deleting your app. Very Pro genocidal entity. Can’t digest it, so throwing it up. ### 1/5 — App kills battery *2026-08-17, version 26.8.10* Is this running background processes? Using this app causes the phone to get hot and it is unclear why. ### 1/5 — Memphis *2026-08-17, version 26.8.10* Memphis TN is located in Shelby County,TN. You are including “Shelby County” info that is not in Tennessee. You need to Re-write your program so that does not pick up Shelby County outside of Tennessee. It is getting to the point that so many of your articles are being blocked by my Secutitu sidtware I don’t know who to trust on anymore ### 1/5 — Dumb and irrelevant news. *2026-08-16, version 26.8.10* The worst news site on the web. ### 1/5 — Left wing hack *2026-08-14, version 26.8.10* This isn’t a fair balanced source of news every story is left leaning and derogatory to the conservative right!! ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Why *2026-08-31, version 26.8.30* Great news terrible terrible pictures terrible images or no images most of the time it’s the only deterrent ### 5/5 — Points for reading is great *2026-08-10, version 26.8.10* I have used the app for years and now earn points toward a gift card just for reading articles I would read anyway. The sources/selection of articles is solid, I can block sources or subjects I don’t want to read. Breaking News comes to my screen IRT. ### 5/5 — My me time *2026-08-08, version 26.8.10* I like reading the articles it gives me time for me and some quite time.. I like how the writers don’t have you jumping forwards and backwards to understand the story ### 5/5 — Great Way to Stay Updated *2026-08-05, version 26.8.10* SmartNews is a good app for keeping up with the latest news. The interface is clean, articles load quickly, and it's easy to browse different topics. I would like to see even more personalization options, but overall it's a reliable app for staying informed every day. ### 5/5 — Shallow articles *2026-07-24, version 26.7.30* Not impressed with subject matter and in depth investigation of stories nor are we impressed with editor for letting 90% articles slide by without any oversight. Looks like unschooled teenagers posted these important News topics ### 5/5 — Great news app *2026-07-16, version 26.7.20* Just dont add anymore ads! ### 5/5 — Best News *2026-07-16, version 26.7.20* Love it ### 5/5 — No user control *2026-07-15, version 26.7.20* Every time I start reading stories when I go back to the main page, it updates to new stories and doesn’t let me continue where I left off. If there are three or four stories that uI plan to read after I read one I have back to the main page to read another, but it updates to all these different stories and I can’t find the ones that I wanted to read. I also used to be able to bookmark certain stories to go back and read them later, but unless I open them up in the browser, they are lost and can’t be saved. Used to be able to bookmark articles. ### 5/5 — Smart News *2026-07-11, version 26.7.10* So easy to follow; to pursue the stories that interest me ### 5/5 — Imagine free news *2026-07-11, version 26.7.10* At last. The free press is free again. Great news at a great price. FREE!! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-04.*