Hawaii News Now

Review by eFreeware

Keeping up with a place you care about is awkward when the coverage you want is scattered across websites, social feeds and whatever a search engine happens to surface. A single app that gathers Hawaii reporting and streams the newscasts can remove some of that hunting around, especially if you live far from the islands or travel back and forth.

Hawaii News Now is that app, published by Gray Media and listed under News & Magazines. The pitch is straightforward: local and international stories in one place, plus live newscasts you can watch without a cable subscription. There is no charge to download it, and it has been on Google Play since July 2011.

Who tends to keep this app open

The clearest audience is anyone with a personal stake in Hawaii: residents who want local reporting between newscasts, people who have moved to the mainland and still follow island news, and families split across time zones who want a shared source. If your interest is mostly national or international headlines, a general news app will cover the same ground.

The live streaming angle is what separates it from a plain headline reader. Watching a newscast on a phone without a cable login is convenient for anyone who has dropped a TV package, and it also helps visitors who want to see how a storm, a road closure or a local event is being reported while they are on the islands.

It is worth setting expectations about the crowd it draws. The app sits at a 2.8 average across 3,131 ratings, which is a modest score for a news product, and the install figure of 100,000+ suggests a focused rather than mass audience. I would treat those numbers as a reason to try it yourself rather than as a final judgment.

Stories, streams and what the recent update touched

The core of the app is a feed of reporting from Hawaii alongside stories from elsewhere in the world, which is the mix most people want from a regional outlet. You open it, scan what is new, and read what matters to you. That is the everyday pattern, and it is the part that has to work well for the app to earn a place on a home screen.

The second capability is live newscast streaming. The developer notes that you can watch newscasts from wherever you are, and that no cable subscription is needed. That is a meaningful distinction from services tied to a TV provider, and it is the feature I would expect to drive most installs.

The most recent update, dated September 9, 2026, lists three fixes: video player behavior, an issue with images in stories, and the layout of the app homescreen. Taken together they point at the parts users touch most, which is a sensible place to spend effort on a news app.

Free to install, supported by ads

Hawaii News Now costs nothing to download, and there are no in-app purchases. The trade-off is advertising: the app contains ads, so you should expect commercial messages alongside the news and the streams. That is the standard arrangement for free news apps, and it is the whole of the cost picture here.

The content rating is Everyone, which fits a general news product rather than anything aimed at a narrow audience. If you prefer to pay for a news source and avoid advertising entirely, that is a different model from the one this app uses.

How it compares with the alternatives

There are two obvious routes if you are weighing this app against something else. The first is a broad national news app, which will carry more world and mainland coverage but rarely streams a Hawaii newscast. The second is a general streaming service or a TV provider's app, which may carry live channels but usually expects a subscription.

Hawaii News Now sits between those: narrower in scope than a national outlet, lighter on commitment than a paid streaming package. For someone whose main interest is island reporting and the local newscast, that combination is hard to match, and it explains why the app has held a place on Google Play since 2011.

The counterweight is the rating. A 2.8 average from more than three thousand ratings is not the reception a publisher hopes for, and it is the strongest argument for trying the app before deciding how much you rely on it. Recent work on the video player and story images suggests the developer is still addressing rough edges.

A focused pick for island news and live newscasts

I would install Hawaii News Now if Hawaii is where your attention goes: you live there, you used to, or you have people there you want to keep up with. The combination of local reporting and live newscasts without a cable subscription is the reason to choose it, and the free download with ads is a low-risk way to see whether the feed suits you.

If your news diet is mostly national and international, a general news app will serve you better, and the modest user rating is worth weighing before you make it a daily habit. For the specific job it is built for, though, it covers the ground cleanly.

What's new

Improved video player behavior Corrected issue with images in stories Improved the layout of the app homescreen