ABC13 Houston app review: local news, weather, and more

Introduction

Residents of Houston who are looking for a news app for their iPhone or iPad will want to consider ABC13 Houston as a candidate to help them get their daily news, traffic, and weather reports.

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This is a free news app which is supported by ads and is the official ABC Digital news app for the Houston area, brought to users by the KTRK-TV station in Houston.

Let’s take a look at its features.

Live Video Streaming

ABC13 Houston downloads in just a few moments, taking up just 33.3 MB of space on your iPhone or iPad. Within this tiny space, it covers everything from Entertainment news stories to the traffic reports in and around the city.

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Breaking news stories are brought to users via video with closed captioning available if necessary. Local newscasts are also broadcast live for users to catch up on the news. Users can enable push notifications so they're the first to know about any breaking news events.

If you prefer to read the news, you can get access to the top news stories from around the city, state, nation, or the world. There are also photo galleries with each article for you to see.

User Experience

This app features a fantastic weather forecast service, which will send you the latest weather information based on your GPS location. You'll also be able to set up various locations and track the weather in those areas. Video forecasts are also available along with weekly and hourly forecasts. To further help you chart out your day, you will be able to see traffic reports from around the city and state so that you can avoid getting stuck on your way to time-sensitive appointments.

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The only downside to the app is the ad bar across the bottom of the screen, which is constantly active and is highly sensitive, so I inadvertently ended up tapping on it multiple times, only to have Safari open up on me. I also found some full-size ads which I couldn't close. This really detracts from the user experience.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Breaking news and local newscast videos streamed live
• Local weather forecasts as well as forecasts for pre-set locations
• Video forecasts along with 7-day as well as hourly forecasts
• Traffic map, headlines, and photos
• Entertainment, sport, and world news

Cons

• The ads are a nuisance and get in the way of a great user experience

Final Words

ABC13 Houston is an app with a great content, packaged on a lovely interface, but unfortunately doesn’t live up to the mark in user experience. In my opinion, if you’re looking for a news app for your iPhone or iPad, you might be better served looking for an alternative unless you have nimble fingers and ample dexterity to help you avoid those pesky ads.