Boston 25 News

Review by eFreeware

If you live in eastern Massachusetts and want a single app for the day's news, the forecast and the game, Boston 25 News is built for that routine. It is the Android app for WFXT, the Boston station owned by Cox Media Group, and it bundles live and on-demand video with weather, traffic, sports and reporting from around the region. The install numbers suggest plenty of people already treat it as a daily check: it has passed 100,000 installs and holds a 4.2 average from 4,559 ratings.

What appeals to me is the scope. Rather than a national feed with a Boston filter, this is organized around Massachusetts from the start, down to specific counties and the teams people here actually follow. You get the station's own coverage, its radar and its drive times in one place, which is a different proposition from a general-purpose news reader.

Who tends to keep this app open

The clearest audience is anyone whose day is shaped by Boston-area conditions. If your commute runs in or out of the metro area, or your plans depend on whether the afternoon holds up, the weather and traffic tools are the parts you would open most often. The county-level news coverage is aimed at readers in Barnstable, Dukes, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Plymouth and Worcester.

Sports fans in the region are the second group. The app carries direct coverage of the Celtics, Red Sox, Bruins, Patriots and Revolution, so if you follow one or more of those teams, that reporting sits alongside the news rather than in a separate app. The station also covers national and world stories, which means you are not forced to switch sources when a bigger story breaks.

I would also expect this to suit people who prefer watching to reading. Live and on-demand video is central to how the app presents the day's major stories, so it rewards someone who would rather see a report than scan a transcript.

Weather and traffic, minute by minute

The weather side leans on StormTracker Doppler Radar, which the station presents as a minute-by-minute view of what is happening overhead, paired with a five-day forecast. That combination covers the two questions most people ask: what is falling on me right now, and what does the rest of the week look like. The radar is the more distinctive piece, since it comes from the station's own forecasting operation rather than a generic feed.

Traffic coverage includes live drive times across the Boston area. For anyone whose route has a predictable pinch point, having those numbers in the same app as the forecast makes a certain amount of sense, since weather and congestion tend to arrive together. It is meant to help you judge whether you will arrive on time.

One practical note the developer includes: if GPS is running in the background, battery life can drop noticeably. That is worth remembering if you leave the app open through a long day.

News, video and the teams you follow

The core of the app is the station's own reporting, delivered through live and on-demand video. You can dig into the major story of the day rather than skim a headline, and the coverage extends from the local counties out to national and world events. The framing throughout is what a story means for the viewer, which is a reasonable way to organize a regional news product.

For a Boston audience that is a sensible inclusion, and it means scores and team stories do not have to come from a second source.

Sharing is straightforward as well: the developer describes content you can pass along to Twitter and Facebook from inside the app. If you are the person in a group chat who forwards the day's stories, that saves a few steps.

What it costs and what comes with it

The app is free to download, and it carries advertising. It does not offer in-app purchases. That is a simple arrangement.

Two disclosures come with the app and are worth reading once. The developer notes that background GPS use can significantly reduce battery life, and the app includes Nielsen's measurement software, which contributes to market research similar to television ratings.

The newest version is a maintenance update that fixes bugs and improves viewing. That tells you the app is being tended to, without promising anything new in the way of features.

How it compares with the alternatives

There are a few reasonable ways to get Boston news, and the right one depends on how you like to consume it. A general news aggregator pulls from many outlets and lets you build a broad feed, but it will not give you the station's own video or its radar. A dedicated weather service goes deeper on forecasting, with more models and longer outlooks, though it will not carry the local reporting or the sports coverage.

A paid streaming subscription to a live TV service is another route, and it can deliver the station's broadcasts, but it costs money and it is built around a television schedule rather than a phone screen. If you follow a specific team closely, a league-specific app will go further on that team than a general news app can.

Where this app sits is in the middle: one free download that covers news, weather, traffic and sports for a defined region. If your interests line up with eastern Massachusetts, that combination is hard to assemble from separate apps without more effort and, in some cases, more money.

A dependable daily app for Massachusetts readers

Boston 25 News is a straightforward proposition: free, ad-supported, and built around one region. The strengths are the breadth of what it covers in a single place and the fact that the weather and traffic tools come from the station's own operation. The trade-offs are the ads, the background GPS battery warning, and the Nielsen measurement software, all of which are disclosed up front.

I would point this at people who live or work in the Boston area and want one app for the morning check. It is particularly well suited to commuters into and out of the metro, to readers in the counties the station covers, and to sports fans who want team coverage next to their news. If your interest in Boston is occasional, a general news app will probably serve you just as well.

What's new

This release version contains some bug fixes and general improvements to enhance your viewing experience.