Google has unveiled a completely redesigned News app that will look to compete with both Apple and Facebook in providing us with the latest news around the world.
Revealed at Google’s I/O developer conference, Google News has a number of new features that will reduce the amount of fake news being read and increase the number of people reading premium journalism.
At the centre of the app though is personalisation. In much the same way that Apple News lets you customise the types of content you want to read, Google News will automatically start learning about your preferences as you use it.
The ‘For You’ section will contain this personalised news along with scores from your favourite sports teams and video from YouTube on the subjects you’re interested in.
The ‘Headlines’ tab will contain the latest breaking news from around the world.
A new feature unique to Google News however is something called ‘Full Coverage’. Using the example of the power outage affecting Puerto Rico, Full Coverage is able to contextualise a story into a single stream of content.
At the top you’ll see the latest news on the story, then as you scroll down you’ll see local news reactions, background and also answers to some of the most Google questions around the topic. Finally at the bottom you’ll see a complete timeline of the story and how it developed.
Finally, the app incorporates a new premium hub called Newsstand. Here you can personalise the type of news you’re seeing and even subscribe to magazines or premium news publishers.
Rather than having to go through a tiresome sign up process, you can simply tap ‘Subscribe’ on the magazine or news organisation and you’ll be billed through your Google Play account.
Google News is now live on iOS and Android and will start appearing on the App Store and Google Play over the next week globally so if you’re keen to try it out then keep checking over the next few days.