Peoria Journal Star

Review by eFreeware

The most distinctive thing about the Peoria Journal Star app is that it pairs a daily news feed with an eNewspaper that reproduces the print edition on a phone or tablet. That combination is unusual among local news apps, which usually pick one format or the other. I'd see it appealing to readers with a genuine stake in Peoria-area news: residents, former residents who moved away, and anyone who follows local high school or college sports closely.

The app comes from USA TODAY Co. and has been on Google Play since September 2011, so it is not a new experiment. It has more than 10,000 installs and a 2.4 average from 368 ratings, a score I read as a caution rather than a verdict. The download is free, the app carries ads, and it offers in-app purchases.

The eNewspaper is the reason to pick this over a news feed

The eNewspaper is the feature the developer leads with, and it is the one I'd weigh most heavily. It works like the print edition but on a mobile device, which means the familiar page layout rather than a scrolling stream of articles. If you grew up reading the paper version, that format is likely to feel more natural than a feed.

The access that comes with it is broader than the name suggests. The developer says subscribers can reach USA TODAY and more than 200 other local eNewspapers through the same app. For someone who splits time between Peoria and another city, or who wants national coverage alongside the local paper, that is a meaningful addition rather than a throw-in.

The catch is that the eNewspaper sits behind the subscription. The app is free to download and every user can read a sampling of free articles each month, but the full eNewspaper and the complete run of journalism require paying. I'd treat the free tier as a way to judge the reporting before committing, not as a way to read the paper for nothing.

What else the app does day to day

Away from the eNewspaper, the app is a conventional local news product. It covers local happenings and sports from high school up to the pros, plus the paper's deeper reporting. The developer describes the reading experience as streamlined and quick to load, which matters when you are checking headlines in a spare moment rather than sitting down with the paper.

Notifications are the other half of the daily experience. Alerts, scores and breaking news come through in real time, and the developer says you can set them to match your interests. That tailoring is the part I'd care about: unfiltered alerts from a news app get muted quickly, while a feed limited to the teams and topics you follow stays useful.

There are also several small conveniences for regular readers. You can save stories for later, change the text size, switch on night mode, and read offline. Offline reading is the one I'd single out, since it covers the situation where you have downloaded the day's edition or a few saved articles and want them on a flight or in a spot with poor signal.

What the app asks of you

The main requirement is a subscription if you want more than the monthly sample of free articles. The developer's terms are standard for this kind of app: subscriptions are charged to your Google Play account when you confirm the purchase and renew automatically each month or year. Canceling means switching off auto-renewal through Google Play more than a day ahead of the period's end.

That 24-hour window is the detail worth remembering. Missing it means another billing cycle rather than an immediate stop, so if you are trying the app for a month, it is worth deciding before the period closes. The app's settings include a subscription support section with customer service contact details if something goes wrong.

Beyond the subscription, the app is free to download, carries advertising, and offers in-app purchases. The content rating is Everyone, so nothing here is aimed at a restricted audience. The practical cost of entry is your time and attention as much as money.

Getting the most from it

My suggestion is to start with the free articles and the notification settings before you decide about paying. Read a week of the local reporting, then set alerts for the teams, towns and topics you actually follow. If the free sampling leaves you wanting more of the same, the subscription is doing its job.

Once you are in, the reading settings are worth ten minutes of your time. A larger text size and night mode make longer articles easier on a phone, and saving stories builds a personal queue for later. Offline reading is best used deliberately: pull down what you want before you lose signal rather than hoping it will be there.

The eNewspaper deserves a fair trial of its own. Page layouts on a phone take some adjustment if you are used to a scrolling feed, and the experience is better on a tablet. If you find the format suits you, the extra access to USA TODAY and the other local papers extends the value well beyond Peoria.

A local paper in app form, with a paywall in the middle

The Peoria Journal Star app is built for one audience: readers who want Peoria-area news, sports and weather in a single place, with the print edition available alongside the feed. The eNewspaper and its wider network of titles are the strongest arguments for choosing it, and the reading options make it comfortable for daily use.

The subscription is the deciding factor. A monthly or yearly charge buys the full journalism and the eNewspaper, while free readers get a limited monthly sample and ads. The 2.4 rating from 368 users suggests plenty of readers have found something to complain about, and I would go in expecting to test the free tier carefully before committing to a renewal.

If you already read the Journal Star and want it on your phone, this is the app for that. If you only need occasional headlines, the free sampling and the alerts may be enough on their own.

What's new in version 8.13.2

• This update includes bug fixes and stability improvements.