WMUR News 9 - NH News, Weather

Review by eFreeware

Local news is fragmented. You can piece together headlines from a handful of websites, wait for a broadcast, or hope a social feed surfaces something useful, and none of those options tells you much about whether a storm is heading for your street. The WMUR News 9 app is an attempt to gather that into a single Android download.

It comes from HTVMA Solutions, Inc. and carries the name of WMUR Channel 9, the New Hampshire station whose coverage it is built around. The app is free, it shows ads, and it has no in-app purchases. At the time of writing it sits at a 4.6 average from 4,491 ratings, with more than 100,000 installs since its May 2012 release.

That combination of age and rating is the first thing I look at with a regional news app. A long run usually means the developer has kept pace with how people actually consume news on a phone, and the rating suggests the audience it serves is broadly satisfied. What I want to work out below is whether the feature set matches the way you would realistically use it.

News that arrives before the broadcast

The core of the app is reporting from Manchester and the surrounding area, alongside national coverage. Sports, traffic, politics and entertainment stories sit in the same place, so you are not jumping between a station site and a separate feed for each subject. For anyone who follows New Hampshire politics or the local sports calendar, having those categories in one app is the main draw.

Push notifications carry breaking local news to your phone, which is the feature that changes how the app fits into a day. Rather than checking a site on a schedule, you get told when something has happened. That is convenient if you live in the coverage area and want to know about closures, accidents or developing stories quickly; it is also the sort of thing worth configuring early, since the value of alerts depends on how much you want interrupting you.

Live streaming is the other piece. Reporters in the field file live updates, and breaking news reaches the app as it happens. For a major local event, watching the station's own coverage on a phone is more immediate than waiting for a written story to be filed, and it is the part of the app I would expect people to open first when something significant is going on.

Sending your own material to the newsroom

There is a two-way element that sets this apart from a simple headline reader. You can submit breaking news, tips, photos and videos directly to the newsroom from the app, and the developer notes that submissions could be featured on air. That is a meaningful option if you are near an incident before a crew arrives, or if you have footage of weather damage that the station would otherwise not have.

I would treat that as a genuine feature rather than a gimmick. Local stations depend on viewers for a lot of their early material, and an app that hands your photo straight to the newsroom removes the step of hunting for an email address or a phone number. It also means the app is not purely a one-way feed; there is a channel back.

The caveat is simply that this is a submission route, not a publishing platform. What happens to your photo or clip after it reaches the newsroom is the station's call, and the app's role ends at getting it there.

Weather you can zoom into

Weather is where the app does the most work. You get current conditions for Manchester, hourly forecasts and a seven-day outlook, and the developer says those forecasts follow you wherever you happen to be. That last part matters if you are traveling through the region or split your time between towns; you are not locked to a single location.

The interactive radar is the standout for me. You can zoom in and out as far as street level, pan around the map and watch storms as they move in. Being able to see activity at that scale is very different from reading a summary line, and it is the sort of thing that answers the practical question of whether a band of rain is going to reach you.

On top of that, the app carries weather alerts and updates, along with videocasts from the station's meteorologists. If you prefer a person explaining a forecast to a wall of numbers, having those clips in the same app as the radar saves a step. Between the radar, the alerts and the video, this is a weather tool as much as a news one.

What you need before you start

Getting going is about as simple as it gets. The app is a free download from Google Play, rated for Everyone, and there is nothing to buy inside it. There is no subscription to arrange and no in-app purchase to consider, so the decision is just whether the coverage is relevant to you.

The trade-off for that is advertising. The app contains ads, so you should expect them as part of the experience rather than being surprised by them. I would weigh that against the fact that you are getting live video, radar and alerts at no cost.

The developer keeps the app updated, and the most recent change notes describe routine maintenance to keep things running smoothly. Feedback goes through a contact screen in the app's menu or by email. If you already use the station's coverage, that is enough to get started; if you are new to the area, it is a quick way to find out what the local news cycle looks like.

A fit for people with a stake in New Hampshire

This app is built around one region, and that is the clearest thing to understand about it. If Manchester and the surrounding New Hampshire area are where you live, work or have family, the reporting, the traffic, the politics and the weather all line up with your daily concerns. You are the audience the station is making this for.

It also suits people who want weather that is specific rather than general. The street-level radar, the alerts and the meteorologist videocasts are aimed at someone who needs to know what is happening outside their own window, not someone checking a national outlook.

And it works for anyone who wants to follow a local story as it develops, whether that means watching live coverage of a breaking event or sending in a photo from the scene. The mix of reading, watching and contributing is what makes it more than a headline feed.

If your interest in New Hampshire is occasional, the app will still work, but the value comes from proximity. The closer you are to the coverage area, the more of it you will actually use.

A worthwhile install for Granite State residents

WMUR News 9 does one job and does it in several directions at once: local and national news, live streaming, weather with street-level radar, alerts and a route for sending your own material to the newsroom.

The costs are straightforward. There are ads, and the coverage is tied to one part of New England, so the app's usefulness rises and falls with how much that region matters to you. Neither point is a flaw so much as the shape of the thing.

I would install it if you live in or near Manchester, follow New Hampshire news, or want a weather app with radar you can zoom into rather than a generic forecast. For that audience it is a sensible addition to a phone, and the free price makes the decision an easy one.

What's new

We update the app regularly to keep things working smoothly for you! Like us? Give us five stars! Have feedback? Use the in-app contact screen in the menu or send us an email at [email protected]