Newsly is a new news and podcast listening application for Android and iOS. The base version of the application is free and text to speech is used to turn text into audio content. A premium version is available, which is ad-free, includes 15 on-demand articles per month, and downloaded articles and podcasts for $9.99 per month.
Newsly supports five news regions at the time of writing — United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Columbia and Brazil — several dozen more languages for the Podcast content that it offers.
The app displays trending content by default; users may play the content individually or as a playlist. An explore option is available to find content of interest, based on the selected region. Categories like science, crypto or business are available, and display a selection of top content, which can then be played individually or all at once.
A search is also available to find content of interest. The app plays the content in its interface; the quality of the text to voice engine is fine, but the quality is inferior to content of professional human voice actors.
The Podcast directory is available in many different languages, and there is a search and an option to paste an URL directly. Users of Newsly may subscribe to Podcasts, which may then be accessed with a tap on the favorites icon in the Podcasts section. Podcasts can be played while online only, as there is no option to download them in the free version.
Users who are mostly interested in podcasts may want to use a different podcasts application, for instance my favorite AntennaPod, available for Android, as these come with download options and other extra functions usually.
I did not notice any ads during tests, but these are mentioned explicitly and it is likely that they are either regionally limited or not enabled yet after launch. The website has no privacy policy link on the homepage, at least none that I could find.
Closing Words
Newsly may be an interesting option for Android or iOS users who would like to listen to news while on the go, commuting, or otherwise occupied. The initial version lacks features, such as the ability to filter sites, favorite news sites, or save news articles for later listening. There is also no option to create a custom playlist. With that said, it is free and if you live in one of the supported regions, you may want to give it a try. The Podcast feature is a handy add-on, but there are better applications out there for that.
Last but not least, the price of a premium subscription seems quite high, at $9.99 per month.
Now You: do you use news applications on your mobile devices?
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