Boston News Source app review: newscasts, weather, and more

Introduction

Coming straight from the 7News WHDH-TV station in Boston, you'll be able to find all that you need to know about the city right at your fingertips thanks to the Boston News Source app for the iPhone and iPad.

With comprehensive news coverage in various forms including newscasts, articles, videos, and more, you'll be able to keep abreast of all that's going on in your city with alerts in the form of push notifications as and when they are published.

This app is available for download completely free of charge in the News section of the App Store, and is supported by ads. Let's take a look at its features.

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Interface, News, & Weather

Boston News Source only takes up 15.9 MB of space on your iOS device, which is fairly lightweight, and makes sense because most of the information is relayed via servers to bring you the latest news and therefore requires an Internet connection to work.

The main interface is a very simple and elegant menu which lays out the various sections of the app in thumbnail form. The sections include News, Weather, Live Video, Send it to 7, Videos, and Traffic. There is also a weather widget visible on the main screen which displays the meteorological conditions of the city for the upcoming five days. You'll be able to see the cloud conditions as well as the temperature.

Users can also track storms live by using the interactive radar along with a list of the latest closings and delays to ensure they have a smooth day despite any weather conditions that may develop. The weather section along with the interactive radar are very powerful and definitely the highlight of this app.

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Videocasts, User Contributions, & Ads

This Videos section is where users can stream the 7News newscasts and breaking news as the events unfurl. Weather forecasts from the 7Weather team and other news videos are also available for streaming.

Furthermore, users may send in their videos and photos using the Send it to 7 feature. If approved, those photos and videos will be seen on air. Users can also tip off the team about any news events they might have missed out on.

A quick word on the advertisements: this app has many ads placed deceptively to make them look like articles or other news items. Unsuspecting users might find this to be rather annoying like I did, but one can quickly get used to this and overlook this downside to using the app, as the other features make up for it very well.

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Pros & Cons

Pros

• Receive the latest news articles at your fingertips
• View the weather forecast for the upcoming days
• Track storms in real time thanks to the interactive radar and see the consequent closings
• Watch live videocasts of breaking news stories as the events take place

Cons

• There are plenty of ads on this app that detract from the user experience

Final Words

Boston News Source is a great app with some amazing features especially the weather and video newscasts. However, the ads do take away points from ease of use. If you can look past that then you'll definitely enjoy having this app on your iPhone or iPad as a reliable news source.