Google News gets ‘Following’ page update for local stories, Material You widget redesign

I have a love-hate relationship with Google News, but that relationship is understandable to an extent. It’s a beautiful app that’s minimal and informative, but at the same time, I don’t favor waking up to the worst kind of news I’ve ever read and  lacking features most other news apps have.

However, such is the nature of news – it’s aggregated, and there are bound to be atrocities in your face when you open the newspaper, be it digital or physical. I do think that Google News tends to surface much more political and disaster-related news than other apps, and it barely lets you customize to tone down the depression.

Despite this, I still use it for my daily read, and try to click off of the homepage as quickly as possible to head to my ‘For you’ page where I have a lot more control over what I’m shown. Mind you, it’s still not really great, but it’s much better. In the past, the ‘Following’ tab in the Google News for Android app showed only your sources, topics, and local news, as well as your saved stories.

In a new update that’s focused on pushing local news initiatives, Google is revamping this ‘Following’ tab to show more content instead of just a list of things you’re following. The company hopes to help local publications surface more frequently on Google News and give readers an easier way to find news that matters to them.

Anything that makes me click or tap less frequently to start reading is a benefit to me and I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment. However, I do wish that Google would simply show a curated list of articles from all of our sources, topics, saved searches and more in this section instead of just focusing on local news.

As I said before, my area is notorious for some of the worst kinds of things that make it into the news (#FloridaMan), so to get an update that pushes more of this into another section of the app instead of just on that homepage kinda sucks despite the UX improvements. Let me know in the comments if you read local news in the Google News app or if you try to avoid being overburdened by it. It’s good to stay informed, but it can have a profound impact on your mental health if you indulge in it too much, wouldn’t you agree?

In more positive ‘news’, the app is receiving a Material You widget redesign, as pointed out by @Nail_Sadykov on Twitter. You can see it below in his tweet. He states it’s coming with version 5.82 of the app. I love the look, but don’t use the widget personally. This new layout will have nicer, more rounded corners, an accented color based on your Material You picker, and two news stories up front that you can tap. If you select the smaller widget or the list view, you’ll see more text-based stories and no thumbnail images.