BBC: World News & Stories

• The Monthly Plan — $8.99/month
• The Monthly Plan — $89.99/year ($7.49/mo)

Last verified 30 Aug 2026

• Free to download
• In-app purchases: $8.99 - $89.99 per item

Last verified 28 Aug 2026

4.5 85931 ratings · App Store

1. 3/5Very pessimistic

   This app focuses mostly on the distressing news throughout the world. It repeats it ad nauseum. There is so much news out there, it would be good for this app to broaden its horizons. It gives a bit of news from the most "noisy" places (repeatedly), but fails miserably in wider coverage. If it's not bad news, this app doesn't cover it. Except of course for the little Royals. Now that's cute. The main problem that I have with it is that if you want to read one of the stories and you happen to be way down in the column on the story, when you finish reading it and go back to the column it puts you all the way back up to the top of the column instead of where you were. That is extremely frustrating have to go all the way back down to the bottom of the column where you were!!!

   Botchybear · 30 Aug 2026

2. 1/5Used to be great.

   Bad user experience now. Popups like “login” or adds detract from reading news. Some articles impose a new scroll dynamic, where there is higher resistance/dampening and the scroll slows down to a halt much faster. If all of iOS scrolls at the same speed, we get used to it. This app should not feel like it has the right to scroll differently. All of these add to experiences that make you realize you don’t like the app instead of integrating the user seamlessly to the app’s content. I’ve tried it again after uninstalling it a year ago after the layout changes, popups, and scrolling irked me and it’s still the same. Be predictable and let us interface with your content. Stop imposing your own way to use our devices that’s different from the other 99% of the time we use our devices. You used to be able to open the app, tap a news article, swipe left or right to go to different articles, and be done. Now it’s open app, decline to log in, pick an article, close the ad, wait for the page to shift around as a webpage is opened within the app and styling changes, now you can scroll, now you recognize it scrolls weird…and now I’m ranting. This used to be my only news app and now have to move to others, and I still haven’t found a better one than what this was a few years ago. :(

   xjauhdngneloahxb · 30 Aug 2026

3. 2/5New Update Has Changed How I Get News

   The app updated about a month ago to the new “modernized” format, and since then I have spent significantly less time on the app because of how poorly designed it has become. I’m not against changing the app if it would result in improvements to the user experience. However, I don’t believe that is the case. Issues I have with the current version are as follows: -The “My News” section no long appears, and none of the five tabs (“Top News”, “Topics”, “Popular”, “Videos”, “Live”) replace that functionality, making finding news in specific categories (e.g. “Gaming,” which used to have its own category) frustrating. -No way to set the topics of the topics tab, as far as I’m aware. -No search functionality, as far as I can tell after about a month. -The popular tab lists the top 10 most read articles, and it used to label them 1-10, now it does not, even though there is still always exactly 10. -Popular tab has the articles spaced much wider, only allowing me to view about half of them on one screen. -Popular tab used to display the category of the news article along with the time since last update, now it only displays the time. The only improvements to the app after the update are the addition of the “time to read” metric at the top of each article, and the fact that the overall look of the articles didn’t change too severely.

   Kikster68 · 30 Aug 2026

4. 1/5The worst back to back updates

   I have used this app for close to 10 years now! This used to be my preferred way of seeing the events throughout the world. But not anymore! The last two updates, one in Nov last year and the last just this week are terrible in user experience! For iOS, the latest update isn’t user friendly at all. It opens the web pages within the app on a click, which makes it less friendly to navigate back (on iPhone, you can slide from left to right to go back to the previous window). This used to be a feature for “live” updates and stories, but not to the published stories. This app became click here and there — with no ease of navigation like an iPhone app. It also nags you to login on every opening of the app; which is unnecessary! Then comes the layout, omg, it became worse! Previously, there used to be a feature to configure your interest areas and 2 latest news per topic would be displayed in one window: which makes it easy to skim through them quickly (and I believe that increases the chance of a frequent visit to the app!) But now, you have to click on every topic to get the full list of news. I feel bad to be pushed away from my favorite news app. I also heard the same complaints from my younger brother and friends. So, it’s not me alone!

   Menilik B · 30 Aug 2026

5. 1/5Awful Update

   I have had this app for years. It WAS my favorite news app. I could control what I wanted to see with the My News section and focus on new information from Science, Technology, Europe, World, and of course my favorite football club. These options no longer exist and neither does this app on my phone. I am so disappointed in the new update. It was refreshing to be able to see news that gets lost in the usual repeating cycle that is mostly tragic news these days. Those options are gone. I can see everything on the new update that I see repeated on every other app or news channel. The update took away the most desirable and important part of the app; its ability to allow people to personalize it and see a variety of news and not just the headlines of the day. I live in the US and I used this app to connect with what was going on in the world as a whole.

   Mimi Mae9 · 30 Aug 2026

3.2 440517 ratings · Google Play

1. 5/5

   great app

   Graham Brown · 29 Jul 2026

2. 1/5

   Too left wing so will uninstall

   James Coyle · 29 Jul 2026

3. 1/5

   I can't view articles without a subscription. Non-starter when competing against reddit.

   Mike Peck · 29 Jul 2026

4. 1/5

   Always was a great resource for news, particularly usually unbiased but it's nothing but a cash grab now. Given it's publicly funded it's a sad state for the BBC

   Darrin Henshaw · 29 Jul 2026

5. 1/5

   Disgraceful. Ads get priority, and the app has slown to a crawl as a result. If you decide to go on holiday to an english-speaking country, you are subscription-walled, in an example of increasing enshittification.

   Laccy G. Leyton · 29 Jul 2026

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