AA Grapevine vs PHS Tower
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
AA Grapevine
Access the international journal of Alcoholics Anonymous, featuring articles, a podcast, and a daily quote. Enhance your sobriety journey with a calculator, events calendar, and exclusive spiritual maintenance tools. Share your experiences and connect with a supportive community.
- Monthly magazine access
- Article archives
- Podcast player
- Daily quote
- Sobriety calculator
- AA events calendar
- Spiritual maintenance checklist
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The Grapevine app is all things Grapevine right on your smartphone. The monthly magazine, the articles archives, the podcast, the daily quote, an enhanced sobriety calculator, and the AA events calendar. App-exclusive features include a spiritual maintenance checklist and the ability to share articles, and your own experience, strength, and hope with other Grapevine app users. The app allows for more content each month too. Service-oriented members will find easy ways to be a part of the AA Grapevine Community in our Get Involved section. You’ll be able to read Grapevine anonymously wherever you go. You can also listen to each month’s articles on a playlist, and listen to the podcast playlist right on the app. Terms of Use / End User License Agreement: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula
PHS Tower
Access news and student reporting from Princeton High School's student newspaper. Features interactive content, opinion pieces, and tools to enhance student life, including schedule organization.
- Student reporting
- Interactive content
- Student opinions
- Schedule organization
- Student quality-of-life features
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Princeton High School's award-winning student newspaper, The Tower, serves as an important medium of news, student discourse, and reporting within Princeton High School's student body. The Tower's new app shares student reporting, features interactive content, and further outreach to better represent the opinions of the student body. The app also includes schedule organization and additional features to improve student quality-of-life at PHS.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: PHS Tower at 100% against AA Grapevine's 30%. PHS Tower also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.0) and in-app purchases (none vs 2). AA Grapevine's advantage is chart position (#63 vs unranked) and ratings volume (87 vs 14). On price, update cadence, ads 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. AA Grapevine sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. PHS Tower asks for nothing beyond the download.
PHS Tower holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: AA Grapevine has 87 ratings behind it against 14, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 30% of AA Grapevine's written reviews are positive against 100% of PHS Tower's.
AA Grapevine ships an update every 4 weeks, PHS Tower every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | AA Grapevine | PHS Tower |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (87 ratings) | 5.0 (14 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 30.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 87 — better | 14 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 weeks | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #63 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 9+ |
| Developer | AA Grapevine, Inc. | Aritra Ray |
Customer experience
AA Grapevine
PHS Tower
Bugs and requests
AA Grapevine
Reported bugs
16 issues- Subscription verification issues
- App is buggy
- Restore subscription option never works
- Cannot access current issue
- App repeatedly states user is not subscribed
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- Subscription sync issues
- App does not unlock all features after subscription
- Data not available message when restoring subscription
- Cannot download full issue
- Meeting place pictures not available
- Article playlist does not auto-advance
- Cannot read on e-ink devices
- Archive search is missing terms
- Cannot sign in with valid subscription
- No user ID/password created during subscription
- App does not recognize valid subscription
Requested features
7 requests- Native iPad version needed
- Improve iPad usability for visually impaired
- Fix app bugs
- Add a way to change password
- Improve archive search functionality
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- Add ability to report app bugs
- Allow specifying user ID/password during subscription
PHS Tower
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
AA Grapevine
- Grapevine Monthly Subscription1 Month trial$2.991 Month
- Grapevine Annual Subscription$29.991 Year
PHS Tower
No in-app purchases
