9NEWS

Review by eFreeware

Most news apps try to cover the whole country. This one does not. 9NEWS is the official app of KUSA, the NBC affiliate for Denver, Colorado, and it is built around one metro area rather than a national feed. That focus is the most distinctive thing about it, and it shapes everything else.

If you live in or near Denver, or you have family and work ties there, the app is designed for you. It gathers local headlines, forecasts, radar and live newscasts into a single place, so you are not hunting across several sources during a storm or a developing story. Anyone outside that area will find little here that applies to them.

What you get from the official KUSA app

The core of the app is local and breaking news. It delivers headlines as they happen in your area, and it can send real-time notifications when something significant breaks. Alongside the daily reporting, the app includes investigative stories produced by the station's team, plus photo galleries, news clips and raw video from the field.

Weather is treated as a first-class feature rather than an afterthought. You get daily and hourly forecasts for your city, updates written by the station's meteorologists, and interactive radar maps you can pan and zoom. Hyperlocal severe weather alerts are automated, which matters in a region where afternoon storms can turn quickly.

Live video rounds out the package. The app streams the station's newscasts and breaking coverage as it happens, so a phone can stand in for a television when you are away from one. Sharing stories and videos with friends and family is possible from inside the app.

Weather tools that carry their weight

For a lot of people in Colorado, the weather section will be the reason to keep the app installed. Hourly forecasts let you plan a day rather than just glance at a high temperature, and the interactive radar gives you a sense of where a cell is heading and how fast. The severe weather alerts are described as hyperlocal, which suggests they are tied to your specific location rather than a broad regional warning.

The forecasts come from the station's own meteorologists, so the app is one more way to reach the same team you would see on air. I would expect that consistency to appeal to viewers who already trust that coverage. It is not a general-purpose weather service for the whole country; it is the weather layer of a Denver news operation.

Following the stories and people you care about

The app includes a personalization layer. You can browse topics and favorite the ones that matter to you, and the developer says favorites feed personalized updates back to you. That is a reasonable way to keep a news app from becoming a firehose, particularly if your interests run to a specific beat such as local politics or crime.

There is also a lighter side. The app surfaces behind-the-scenes photos and updates from anchors and reporters, which gives the station a more human presence than a plain headline list. School delays and closings are posted as they are announced, a small feature that becomes important on winter mornings.

What the app asks of you

The app is free to download and carries advertising. There are no in-app purchases. The trade-off is the ad load that comes with a free local news product, and that is simply part of using it.

The other requirement is location. This is a Denver-area app, and its news, weather and alerts are all built around that market. If you do not have a connection to Denver, the content will not line up with your life. Even within the area, the value depends on how much you want a single station's coverage rather than a broad mix of sources.

The app has been available since December 2012 and was last updated in October 2026, with the most recent changes described as bug fixes and improvements. It has more than 100,000 installs and a 3.4 average from 6,315 ratings, a middling score that suggests a functional app rather than a beloved one.

Who it fits

This app is for people whose daily life touches the Denver metro: residents, commuters, parents watching for school closures, and anyone who wants a local forecast and radar in the same place as the headlines. It is also a sensible install for people who have moved away but still follow news from home.

If you already watch KUSA or read 9NEWS.com, the app is a natural extension of that habit. The app offers a feedback address, which suggests the team is open to hearing what works and what does not.

A focused pick for Denver readers

9NEWS does one job and does it within a clearly drawn boundary: it keeps Denver-area readers informed about their own city, with weather tools that are genuinely useful in a state where the forecast changes fast. The combination of breaking news notifications, interactive radar, severe weather alerts and live newscasts covers the basics well.

The caveats are the ones that come with any free local news app: advertising is part of the experience, and the content is tied to a single market. The 3.4 rating is worth noting, though ratings for news apps tend to reflect everything from ad irritation to personal complaints about coverage rather than the app itself.

If Denver is your home market and you want one app for local news, weather and live video, this is a reasonable choice.

What's new in version 50.29.1

Bug Fixes and Improvements.