iPad News Apps

Mainly known for its proliferation in hotels across the United States, USA Today is a free newspaper for your iPad. There are customizable stocks and access to its daily crossword puzzle. There are regular updates throughout the day, which makes it a decent choice for getting your news fix.

Pulse allows you to select feeds from a wide variety of preselected news sources and feeds. You can swipe in all directions to view multiple news items from multiple sources simultaneously. Pulse will also recommend various other content you may enjoy, depending on what you read. You can set up your pages with feeds from various categories of news such as Sports, World, Technology and more. You can even get the local news for your area. The app is very intuitive and provides a nice layout so you can glance at all the headlines.

BBC News features a great layout, taking full advantage of the iPad’s screen space. In addition, BBC News allows users to listen to a live stream of their radio station while browsing the news, making for a great overall experience. You can read the news in multiple languages and see breaking news on the top of the screen. For the great price of free, this app is definitely worth checking out.

Known as one of the top business newspapers (as well as excelling in many other areas), The New York Times can be delivered daily to your iPad. The app does a great job of preserving the traditional newspaper layout, and allowing you to jump to the sections you care about. Unfortunately though, the majority of its functionality (and news) requires a subscription. If you are already a print subscriber, you can add the digital edition for a small fee depending on your subscription details. If you only want the digital edition, it will set you back $3.99 each week. Again, if this app were not so expensive, it would be essential for your iPad.

The Early Edition 2 is unique because you become the editor, bringing in your favorite content to a beautifully laid out newspaper. You create your own custom newspaper with RSS feeds from your favorite sites, or sync it with your Google Reader account. Now you can flip through pages and see your newsin an easy to read edition. You can also share articles through Facebook, Twitter and other social media. For $2.99, this app is notable, especially for those who enjoy the look of a newspaper.

Flipboard will help you customize all the news you could ever want. In addition, you can quickly view headlines from your Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can put virtually all your interests into your Flipboard and have this news at your fingertips. The layout is unique, where each Flipboard is a subject that you choose from your favorite blogs, websites, newsfeeds and more. For free, this app is worth checking to see if it matches your style.

The Wall Street Journal app’s free access was very short-lived. While doing a great job of preserving the traditional newspaper layout, the Wall Street Journal is tarnished by the fact that the vast majority of its functionality (and news) requires a hefty annual subscription.

News Republic is defined as smart news for smart people. The goal of this app is to provide a large amount of customized news, delivered to a reader in a beautiful format. It provides keyword support of your favorite topics with a gorgeous interface that makes you want to open this app on a daily basis. News Republic also has support for Facebook and Twitter and articles can be shared with a single click. If you liked a particular topic, then you can use the encyclopedia feature that will link up related articles to help you learn more about it. Overall, News Republic is a fantastic app for readers of any kind. With the ability to let you select the news that you want to see, this app has something for everybody.

AOL Editions is a personalized news magazine that uses your interests and location to deliver news most relevant to you. If you have a website that you like to receive updates from, then you can use the RSS feature. All of the content comes in a neat, magazine-style layout; you can even choose the color of the cover. This app will also pull information from your iCal and Facebook. The end result is a neat, personalized digital magazine that everybody can enjoy.

This highly personalized news magazine gets better the more you use it. Simply choose the topics you're interested in. Give articles and keywords "thumbs up" or "thumbs down", and Zite learns your tastes so it can show you more of what you like (and less of what you don't). This is a unique way to gather the news you are interested in.

For those who like their news well-rounded, News 360 is here. Browse the headlines, or go more in-depth with dozens of stories from different sources on the same topic. This is a great choice for people who like to get different points of view. The app is laid out well and easy to navigate.

The Associated Press is the source for many other news outlets. Grab this free, universal app and you'll be on top of all the latest breaking news. The app has a save features so you can bookmark articles to read later. Get news from around the world as well as your local feed with AP Mobile.

Whether or not you're already entrenched in Yahoo's ecosystem, you'll want to check out their free news offering. It feels more like a magazine than a newspaper, but it's fun to set up your own personal news source. In fact, you can set up four different personalized feeds for different members of your family. Probably designed to compete with The Daily, complete with videos and a slick user interface, it's certainly a worthwhile download.

Google throws its hat into the news ring with this attractive option. Another "The Daily"-inspired news magazine app, this one is free and worth checking out for yourself. Track your own blogs and feeds or see what Google suggests. Utilizing Google's search algorithms, this app will bring you the popular trends of the moment.

For the price, this is a good news app. At .99 month, you get news content that beats many other news magazines found in the App Store. You will have access to US News and World Report’s current edition, which is updated weekly. Previous issues can also be saved and accessed, unlike other news apps. The layout is like its paper edition magazine, and you can jump to different articles from contents menu. Remember though, this app only comes out once each week, so it will not provide you with up-to-the-minute news.

Google is the source of a lot of information, and this app shows it off. Google News brings in the top stories from several newswires. There are categories already set up such as Top (news), Health, Sports and several more. These categories are continually updated as current news breaks. The basic app is free, however there is a pro version with more features and no ads for $2.99.