New Scientist

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• Free to download
• In-app purchases

Last verified 31 Jul 2026

Shown for US

• Free to download
• In-app purchases: $1.99 - $180.00 per item

Last verified 5 Aug 2026

Shown for US

4.8 5471 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5Recommended by my truly brilliant friends & colleagues!

   This is one of my favorite journals, so much so that I subscribe to the hard copy as well as online. Some years ago I discontinued owing to hassles related to logging in. I renewed here recently and — surprise — the same problem occurred again! The problem is that they have two email addresses for me and somehow the system chokes. This time around I think their *excellent* support has resolved the issue. We shall see. This is a popular magazine filled with articles suitable for laypersons and intelligent high school kids. I have a doctoral degree, but not in quantum physics or anthropology or math or other complex fields. Their writers are also excellent, with compelling accounts related to big ideas and world-changing science. They do their homework well. The magazine is thin, not like the old days when such publications were hefty. But if you love hands on, the high price is worth it. If you are on Apple News you can access it there as well. It’s also a WEEKLY publication, which is wonderful. I am a behavioral science guy, and the articles in my vast field are very well done and valuable. It easily earns five stars. This is not an academic science journal. It’s a popular magazine. Therein lies the greatness. It’s the science source for the rest of us.

   Tex from Dartmouth · 31 Jul 2026

2. 5/5Good but with glairing problem

   The updated app is an all round massive improvement over the previous app. I have been reading NS back to back since I was a teenager, and after moving abroad I elected to skip the printed version in favour of the digital. This way it's always in my pocket and I evade the massive stack of finished editions. As happy I am with all the small improvements, one change from the old app, a reduction in usability is to me hard to forgive. The app does not support landscape on mobile phones. It does support landscape viewing on my iPad, so I can only assume it was a concious decision to restrict the switch to landscape on smaller devices. This seems to ignore the massive amount of phonecases that specifically make it easy to lay your phone down for reading hands free. I am now forced to prop my phone against objects just to be able to sip my coffee as I read. Thank god for my old iPad, but that doesn't travel with me and thus this oversight or uncomprehesable design decision takes away the only real advantage I saw to subscribing digitally. I guess I will be switching back to the printed subscribtion.

   objonsson · 31 Jul 2026

3. 5/5OMG!

   New Scientist is like talking to the smartest and most profound thinkers on my plane of existence. It’s all about profound thoughts and ideas that you can’t find talking to the people around you. It’s things that excite me and make me ask more questions! But try to explain this kind of excitement to anyone in you’re sphere of people and they smile and nod and get glazed looks in their eyes… It’s refreshing for curious people and it’s mind bending! It’s just what I need when everything is hard and complicated in life and I need a more complex tangible reason why it is that way….Its my religion… My most profound and powerful thought has always been that “In this life, in this plane and in this body…I will never know enough to explain the real BIG QUESTION!” But as much as I can, I’ve come through with a breakthrough that is profound, amazing, thought provoking and enough to settle my existential question. I was right all along!!! Hot Dog! I can die happy now!

   Tawnya AKA Serenity Lux · 31 Jul 2026

4. 5/5<3

   I absolutely love and adore NewScientist, and appreciate the strides the app has made, especially over the last couple of years, where I found I no longer truly cared about having a physical magazine delivered, and no longer preferred using NewScientist in a web browser, two things I am very happy about, actually. One feature I would enjoy seeing, is a way to easily click to the text articles directly from the audio player & queue. I am an absolutely horrible listener, and have to do things like focus only on a person's lips while they're speaking, or I'll accidentally begin to tune them out. When I listen to NewScientist articles, I like to have the written article up so that I can pause the article and read the part that I have just noticed I've been unintentionally ignoring, ha... I think even normally functioning humans would enjoy being able to click directly to the written article from the audio player. :)

   hiqmikoo · 31 Jul 2026

5. 2/5Before you subscribe read this (I did and regret it)

   Before you subscribe to this App please be aware of the following serious issues it has: 1. You DO NOT get access to the latest content until a week later. So if you read a cool story on New Scientist’s twitter account for example and want to read it right away, tough luck, you have to wait a week. 2. If you subscribe through the App, you DO NOT get access to the web version which has the latest issues and is up-to-date. 3. While reading articles inside the App you often get links to previous articles, but you CAN NOT read those articles because they point to the web versions instead of the App version. 4. You CAN NOT search for anything across multiple magazines, you can only search inside the magazine you are reading. 5. Your bookmarks ARE NOT saved to iCloud, which means they do not carry over between your iPhones and iPads. It also means that if you need to reinstall the App (something you probably will do because of bugs in the App) you will lose all your precious bookmarked articles. 6. DO NOT believe the high rating of this App. What they do is that after they get a lot of bad ratings they release “a new version” of the App (really the same App with maybe a couple of bugs fixed) which clears all the bad ratings (Apple should fix this behavior). 7. The interface is among the worst interfaces you will ever use to navigate an App. Totally non-intuitive. 8. The only GOOD thing about this App is the quality of the articles themselves, but they are layered behind one of the worst App experiences I have ever used in my life.

   eliax · 31 Jul 2026

Shown for US

4.6 6983 ratings · Google Play

1. 4/5

   Great app, just missing two features. 1 see which articles you already read. 2 rate articles, with possibility of a recommendation system.

   Daniela Zaragoza Rodriguez · 5 Aug 2026

2. 5/5

   Absolutely great, wouldn't be without it.

   alan sims · 5 Aug 2026

3. 4/5

   The pdf version is slow even when connected to a 1 Gbps connection. It would be better if the app would download the pdf all at once instead of page by page.

   Chris McCall · 5 Aug 2026

4. 1/5

   app keeps advising I have no subscription and cannot view articles though my subscription still has seven months to run. New Scientist will not address the fault claiming Google manages the subscription. No response ftom Google play. Do not reccomend.

   simon barnaby · 5 Aug 2026

5. 5/5

   Interesting and informative. Not too technical or dry.

   Steven TREWIN · 5 Aug 2026

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• 4.21 · 16 Apr 2026