NPR: National & Local News

NPR

Contains ads

About this app

Welcome to the public radio universe.

The NPR app is the best way to get the latest news of the day, deep-dives on important topics that broaden your world, and the quirky, fun stories you'll want to share with your friends – all in one place.

Make it personal.
Play NPR One on the Home screen to get a personalized, continuous stream of shows, news, headlines, and music from every corner of public radio. Listen to what you want to, skip what you don’t. Or add a story you find interesting to your playlist. Your mix will be personalized to deliver the NPR you want, while still serving you stories you didn’t know you’d love.

Broaden your podcast palate.
Head to the ‘Podcasts’ tab to listen to shows from across public radio, recommended for you by our team of expert editors. (Don't forget to enable notifications to stay on top of your new favorites.)

Make us your music concierge.
Watch Tiny Desk Concerts in full right on the app. Just tap the tab labeled ‘Music,’ and hit play to soak in live performances from music’s favorite office space. You can also stream music from around the country, browse the latest music headlines, dig into reviews, and more.

Make everywhere more interesting.
Connect NPR to your speakers wherever you are, via Chromecast, AirPlay, Apple CarPlay, or Bluetooth. Login or register for a free NPR account, then just say "Alexa, play the news from NPR," to have your app listening experience amplified.

Support your listening, and NPR.
The NPR app is free and will always be. If you want to get even more out of your listening experience while supporting public media, consider joining NPR+. You’ll get perks like sponsor-free podcast listening, bonus content, archive episodes, and early access to select shows. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

Data Protection Choices:
At NPR, we understand how important privacy is to you, and we are committed to transparency about how we collect, use and share your information. Please take a moment to read our privacy policy: https://n.pr/privacypolicy.

By downloading this app:
You agree to NPR’s terms of use, available at https://n.pr/termsofuse.
You acknowledge that NPR may process your personal data as described in NPR’s privacy policy, available at https://n.pr/privacypolicy.
You agree that NPR uses devices, identifiers, tracking technologies, and information about the device you use to access NPR’s apps to enhance your viewing, listening, and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This information is shared with social media services, sponsorship, analytics, and other third-party service providers. See details in NPR’s privacy policy.

Ratings and reviews

For multiple articles, an ad that's more than halfway down the page blocks the text and gets stuck there, and there's no way around it. NPR also started linking out articles to some of their subsidiaries, and clicking on an article and having it open in a web browser (without warning) is just poor UX — and defeats the point of an app. The search function barely works, even if you use quotation marks around the phrase. The app worked well enough before, but I'm getting ready to delete it.

This app seems to provide the bare minimum that is needed, which is both a pro and a con. Pro because the app is light-weight and takes up very little room on my Samsung. And a con because there are a few key functions that are missing. For example, there is no way to set up notifications within the app (not sure how others are able to do this since it is non-existent in my app) and the ability to save articles for future reading. Luckily and surprisingly however, there is the option to search,

The way the app used to be formatted was geared towards reading news stories. That was perfect. Pivoting to podcasts is not something I care for. If I want to listen to NPR, it's in the name: radio. If I want the podcast form, there are many other ways to do that. The only way to read news on NPR on my phone was through the app. Additionally, despite disabling the NPR app's ability to use device audio, it will play via Bluetooth, even with the app closed.

What’s new

New this release: Loving NPR and Member Station podcasts? Send your favorite to a friend by using the share button at the top of a podcast page. We've also made showing your support for NPR a lot easier with an easy-to-find donate button and in-app subscription to NPR+.

Need help or have feedback to share? Write to us at help.npr.org.