The Hill vs AP Playbook
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Hill
Stay informed on Congress and politics, with a focus on business, lobbying, and campaigns. Access news, analysis, and opinion pieces, plus video reports and political talk shows. Get push notifications for breaking news and save articles for later.
- Congress and politics coverage
- Business and lobbying focus
- News, analysis, and opinion
- Video clips and talk shows
- Topic-based push notifications
- Save stories for later
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Covering congress & politics with a focus on business and lobbying, political campaigns, and goings on on Capitol Hill. Read news, analysis, and opinion pieces across a variety of categories, including Senate, House, Administration, Campaign, Business & Lobbying, and topical blogs. Watch video clips of reporting from the capitol, as well as full episodes of our political talk shows. Follow topics to get push notifications on breaking news. Save stories to read later.
AP Playbook
This app centralizes, visualizes, and strategizes newsroom plans. It helps newsrooms collaboratively plan coverage, monitor assignments, and track costs for all formats. Users can build plans with topic and assignment cards, view dashboards, and receive notifications for story developments.
- Collaborative coverage planning
- Assignment monitoring
- Cost tracking
- Visual dashboards
- Topic and assignment cards
- Notifications for updates
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Access your AP Playbook account on the go: Centralize, visualize and strategize your newsroom's plan of action with AP Playbook. AP Playbook will help your newsroom collaboratively plan your coverage calendar, monitor assignments and track costs. AP Playbook gives decision makers and newsroom users access to create and view day-of and future coverage plans for every format, helping editors prioritize coverage and reporters manage assignments. Less time making plans means more time telling the stories that will grow your audience. With AP Playbook, you can: – Build plans with topic cards for top level stories and assignment cards for related tasks. – Stay up to date on assignments through visual dashboards and personalized views. – Monitor individual and cumulative story costs to manage your budget. – Keep up with all the background material attached to any story. – Get notifications so you never miss a new assignment or story development. Learn more at our website. Must be a existing AP Playbook customer to use the app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: AP Playbook at 100% against The Hill's 7%. AP Playbook also leads on rating (4.1 vs 2.5) and ads (none vs shown). The Hill's advantage is update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 6 months) and ratings volume (287 vs 7). On price, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
AP Playbook holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 2.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: The Hill has 287 ratings behind it against 7, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 7% of The Hill's written reviews are positive against 100% of AP Playbook's.
The Hill ships an update every 5 weeks, AP Playbook every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | The Hill | AP Playbook |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.5 (287 ratings) | 4.1 (7 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 6.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 287 — better | 7 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #208 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 9.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 81 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Nexstar Broadcasting | The Associated Press |
Customer experience
The Hill
AP Playbook
Bugs and requests
The Hill
Reported bugs
15 issues- App crashes when opening articles
- App crashes when scrolling too quickly
- App freezes during initialization
- App won't load on some devices
- Text cut off in landscape mode
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- Text cut off by notch on iPhone X
- Articles don't display completely
- Ads cover article text
- App stutters and jumps to ads
- App jumps to end of articles
- App won't progress past notification setup screens
- Jittery scrolling performance
- High CPU and battery consumption
- Incompatibility with accessibility settings
- Recent update breaks core functionality
Requested features
11 requests- Search functionality for articles
- Bookmark/save articles feature
- Breaking news notifications
- Ad-free subscription option
- Ability to disable auto-play videos
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- Adjustable font size and zoom
- Filter articles by topic/policy
- Chronological article sorting
- Author attribution in articles
- Ability to listen to music while using app
- Improved accessibility features
AP Playbook
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
The Hill
No in-app purchases
AP Playbook
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is The Hill free?
Is AP Playbook free?
Which has better reviews, The Hill or AP Playbook?
Do The Hill or AP Playbook have ads?
Which is updated more often, The Hill or AP Playbook?
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