We’ll be back on Monday…

Sometimes we forget to check the TV before a trip out of town.

25 Years ago this statement wouldn’t sound so out of place. We remember back then that most of the news traveled in print and usually took a week for it reach one coast from the other. Even if it did, most people never knew unless they were actively looking for news. Announcements were more likely to be heard from the radio. It occurred to us that someone could probably run from the police for a very long time if they wanted to. Try to do that today and you might get into the next state–if you’re lucky.

When debating with individuals significantly older than us we sometimes have to ask if the state of violent crimes was really all that bad today or… are we just hearing about it sooner because we’re so interconnected? It comes up time and time again. So then when we do navigate to a place outside of our homebase what exactly do we do? How do we get an idea of what to expect?

Google Now sometimes does a good job but it isn’t very good at predicting much other than what might be. It also doesn’t aggregate events or news efficiently. While it’s good to have your interests first sometimes it helps to just get the whats what of everything around us and let us choose what we want to read.

There are apps for that.

1. News & Weather (SoLoMob Inc.)

Most of the time you get to those stupid websites that try to trick you into sliding past like what… 30 some odd slides in order to see the content? Oh let’s not forget that they need to slap an advertisement somewhere in the middle of that. Not today, today we are starting off with the most important part first. Maybe you’re pressed for time and don’t need a lecture, you’re in luck, scroll down  this section and download this app then call it a day.

It’s that good.

What we have here is an application that DOES IT ALL. There was a reason that it was voted one of the best applications on the Google Play Store by users. For starters it comes with Text to Speech integrated into the news sections already. There is no need to download a secondary app to handle the text as you have to manually copy or long press and hit share on the menu. No, this app handles it by simply you pressing the icon on the top bar with other features.

Depending on the voices you have installed it can sound as nice as you want it to. Each article is formatted for your small screen and can be customized to show the news that only YOU want to see.

There are alarms that can be set, as well as articles being available for offline reading in case your internet connection dies on the ride home from work.

The coolest feature is the weather section. Most applications will give you a tiny symbol and a number but this one decides to go all out and show you other bits of news regarding the weather on the same page with in depth coverage when you click on the icons.

If you were to ask me (I’ve been a long time user of the second entry) what I would choose now? We’re downloading this one right here and forgetting about the rest.

Get News & Weather (SoLoMob Inc.) on Google Play

2. Google News & Weather

This one here has been around for a long time. Since the first days of Gingerbread actually. Back then things were simpler. There used to be a page for the weather and then you’d swipe right to see the first ten articles of any given topic you decided you wanted coverage on. Fast forward to today and you have all the makings of a champ–the only real problem that comes up is for those of us who don’t have a reliable internet connection. Sometimes we commute to work and sometimes work isn’t inside of the coverage zones nor do we have an employer that uses Wi-Fi (Hard to believe but they do exist). This being the case then this one here falls flat as it requires you to have a working connection to stay in the know when you access tabs. Otherwise it does the job pretty well with allowing you customization options for your news topics, and a deeper idea of what the weather is supposed to be like with detailed readings.

No Text to Speech though, so you can’t use this while driving.

Get Google News & Weather on Google Play

3. News and Weather (API Lab)

This one here should have been called the BBC News and Weather. All of the articles from the feeds take you to the British Broadcasting Network’s content. This can be good and bad. We’ve long known the BBC to be very unbiased in their opinions of their democratic neighbors but in the same vein we wonder if the news coming from only one source might in some way sound biased without them knowing it. That would be up to you to decide but we have it on here because of how quickly it works and the information that gets presented. This is for those of us who have NO time for anything.

Get News and Weather (API Lab) on Google Play

4. News & Weather (Awnry Software)

The last entry in this article begs us to answer the question, “Why these in particular?” Well let’s answer that. We aren’t looking for the best Weather app, we aren’t looking for the best News app. If we were then we’d have the obvious choices, Flipboard, WeatherBug, etc. No, we’re looking for those apps that accomplish both things at once. And for this reason there are very few in the running. For example, this app was my go-to for a very long time until the advertisements took over. Ads aside it still manages to do exactly what we were looking for. Give us the News and Weather.

Get News & Weather (Awnry Software) on Google Play