The Plain Dealer

Review by eFreeware

A local paper covers a lot that never travels far: council votes, high school teams, restaurant openings, the small stories that only matter if you live there. Following that from a phone usually means a website that fights you the whole way. The Plain Dealer, from cleveland.com, is that newspaper rebuilt as an Android app, and it carries the paper's reporting alongside extras that only exist on the phone.

It installs free, shows no ads, and offers in-app purchases. The app is a companion to the print and online paper rather than a separate product: the developer's pitch is the same journalism, arranged for a screen you carry. There is also a personalized feed in the latest version, where you choose the authors and topics you want to see.

The app has been out since April 2021 and was last updated in January 2026, with more than 10,000 installs and a 3.9 average from 239 ratings. Those numbers describe a modest, steady audience rather than a breakout hit, which fits a regional newspaper app.

Reading Cleveland news day to day

The core of the app is the daily paper: local news, features, sports and entertainment, plus the special sections that run through the week. If you have followed Cleveland coverage for years, this is the same reporting in a different container, and the app adds things the print edition cannot, such as sharing a story with family in another state without tearing out a page.

The daily obituaries feed sits in the storefront, which is a thoughtful placement. Obituaries are one of the few parts of a paper people check on a schedule, usually for a specific reason, and putting that feed where you land first saves hunting through sections for it.

What I like about this arrangement is that it does not ask you to relearn the paper. The sections you expect are there, and the reading experience is the point rather than a feed of alerts. Anyone who wants a quick skim of headlines will find plenty, but the app is built for people who sit with an edition.

Magazines, puzzles and saved stories

Beyond the news, the app carries bonus magazines and supplements that are described as online-only perks. That is a real difference from the print product: material that would otherwise be a separate insert shows up inside the same app, so a long weekend read is a tap away rather than a stack of paper on the counter.

Interactive puzzles and games are built in as well, and they are integrated rather than bolted on. For readers who treat the crossword or a daily puzzle as part of the routine, having it in the same place as the news removes one more reason to keep a second app around.

The practical touches matter too. You can search previous editions, bookmark stories to return to later, and share articles with friends and family. Dark mode is available, which the developer lists among the improvements in the current version. None of this is exotic, but it is the set of tools a newspaper app needs to be usable every day.

A feed shaped around your interests

The newest addition is For You, a personalized newsfeed you build by picking the authors and topics that matter to you. The developer describes this as a way to stay informed, and it is the feature that makes the app more than a digital replica of the paper.

The appeal is obvious for anyone with narrow interests. A reader who follows one beat writer, or who cares about a single team or suburb, can assemble a feed around that instead of scrolling past everything else. It also gives the app a reason to be opened between editions, when there is no new paper to read.

I would treat this as the part of the app most worth trying first. A general news reader may never touch it, but for someone whose reading is concentrated, it changes how the app fits into a day.

Access and subscriptions

Getting in depends on whether you already pay for the paper. Existing Plain Dealer subscribers, the developer says, get full access to every edition at no extra cost; you sign in with the email and password tied to your subscription and everything opens up.

If you are not a subscriber, there is an app-only option: a one-month auto-renewing subscription at $24.99. That is a monthly commitment rather than a small one-off, and it renews automatically unless you turn auto-renew off at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Payment goes through your Google Play account, and subscriptions are managed in your Play account settings, with no cancellation during an active period.

So the honest split is between people who already subscribe and people deciding whether the paper is worth a monthly charge on its own. The app itself is free to install and carries no ads; the in-app purchase is this subscription. The content rating is Teen.

Who the app suits

This is a Cleveland paper, and it reads like one. The people best served are those who already follow the region's news closely, whether they live there, grew up there, or moved away and want to keep up. For them, the combination of daily reporting, obituaries, magazines and puzzles in one place is exactly the right shape.

Existing subscribers get the clearest value, since access comes with the subscription they already hold. Readers without one are weighing $24.99 a month against how much of the paper they will actually read, which is a personal calculation the app cannot make for them.

Someone who wants broad national and international headlines will find the scope narrower than a general news app, because the focus is local. That is a description of what the app is built for rather than a flaw, and it is the reason it works for the audience it has.

A worthwhile companion for Cleveland readers

The Plain Dealer app does one job: put the Cleveland paper on your phone with the extras print cannot offer. It does that with a free install, no ads, searchable back editions, bookmarks, puzzles, magazines, a daily obituaries feed and a personalized feed built from authors and topics you choose. The 3.9 average from 239 ratings suggests a settled, satisfied-enough audience rather than a runaway success.

My recommendation is straightforward. If you already subscribe to the Plain Dealer, install it and sign in; the access is included and the app adds real conveniences. If you do not, the app-only subscription at $24.99 a month is the question to settle first, and it is worth being sure you will read the paper often enough to justify it before committing.

For readers whose news diet is Cleveland-shaped, this is a sensible home for it. For everyone else, the local focus is the whole point, and it is worth knowing that going in.

What's new in version 8.0.0

"For You" allows you to create your own personalized newsfeed by selecting the authors and topics that matter most to you. Stay Informed like never before with the Plain Dealer Cleaner Faster Smarter.