Hartford Courant

Review by eFreeware

If you follow Hartford-area news and want it on your phone rather than in a browser tab, the Hartford Courant app is the paper's own route to that coverage. It is published by Tribune Publishing and gathers the Courant's news, sports, business and entertainment reporting into a single Android app, with the E-Newspaper edition of the printed paper reachable from the same place. Readers who already pay attention to what courant.com publishes are the obvious audience.

The app has been on Google Play since January 2011 and has passed 50,000 installs, so it is not a new experiment. Its average sits at 2.6 from 335 ratings, which is low enough that I would set expectations accordingly rather than assume the experience matches the journalism behind it. The app offers a simple, elegant and customizable way to reach the paper's premium storytelling, with video, photo galleries, saved items, alerts and sharing.

What appeals to me here is the narrowness of the job. This is not a general news reader that pulls from many outlets; it is one newspaper's app for one region's readers. If the Courant is already part of how you keep up with Connecticut, installing it is a reasonable way to carry that habit around.

Reading the day's coverage without a browser

The core of the app is straightforward: the paper's reporting on local news, sports, business and entertainment, presented for a phone screen. The developer describes the app as customizable, which suggests you can arrange the app around the sections you care about rather than scrolling past everything. For someone who checks scores, local politics and business headlines in the same sitting, having all of it inside one app is the main draw.

Beyond text, the app carries exclusive videos and photo galleries. That matters for the kinds of stories a newspaper handles visually: high school and college sports, weather events, community gatherings, and the photo work that accompanies longer features. A reader who skims headlines but stops for a gallery or a short clip gets more out of this than someone who only wants plain article text.

The E-Newspaper option is the other piece worth noting. It gives access to the printed paper's edition in app form, which is the closest thing to the traditional reading experience for subscribers who still think in terms of sections and page layout. That is a different way of reading than the article feed, and having both in one app covers two habits at once.

Saving, sharing and staying alert

Two features stand out for daily use. The first is saving. You can set aside stories, photos and videos to return to when you have time for them, which suits the common pattern of spotting something interesting during a busy moment and reading it properly later. The second is alerts: the newsroom can push breaking news straight to your notifications, which is how most people will learn about major local developments first.

Sharing is handled through Twitter, Facebook or email, so passing a story to a friend or a group chat takes a couple of taps. That list covers the usual routes people use to circulate news, and it means the app does not force you to copy links by hand.

The most recent update added an author view to articles, which lets you look at a reporter's work as a group rather than one story at a time. The same update fixed an error that produced an "unable to load this content" message, so readers who ran into that problem should find articles open more reliably now. Both changes point to an app that is still being worked on rather than left alone.

What you need before you start

Setup is minimal by the sound of it. You install the app, and the coverage, video, galleries and E-Newspaper access are there. The customization the app advertises is something you shape over time as you decide which sections you actually follow.

The things to know before installing are about cost and presentation rather than setup. The app is free to download, it carries advertising, and it offers in-app purchases. I would treat the free download as the starting point and decide from there. The app is rated Everyone and sits in the News & Magazines category.

The readers this fits

This app is built for people with a real connection to the Hartford area: residents, people who grew up there, commuters into the city, and anyone with family or business ties to the region. If the Courant is your paper, the app is a direct line to it, including the E-Newspaper edition for those who like the printed format.

It also suits readers who want local coverage gathered rather than assembled from several sources. Sports followers who care about local teams, business readers tracking Connecticut companies, and people who want the paper's video and photo work all get something specific here.

The 2.6 average from 335 ratings is the number I would keep in mind. It suggests a fair share of users have found the experience wanting, and it is the reason I would describe this as an app to try rather than one to assume will delight you. The journalism is the reason to install it; the app is the delivery method, and the ratings say that delivery has not pleased everyone.

A newspaper app for committed Courant readers

It is free, supported by advertising, and includes in-app purchases. The recent update added an author view and fixed a content-loading error.

I would point this at readers who already follow Hartford news and want the Courant in app form, especially those who value the E-Newspaper edition or want local stories saved for later reading. If you are outside that audience, the app's scope will feel narrow, because it covers one paper and one region by design.

For everyone else, the low average rating is a fair signal to go in with modest expectations.

What's new in version 10.0.62

Added new author view to articles Fixed inadvertent "unable to load this content" message