14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft seems very committed to delivering a fully-featured news experience to Windows 10 users, and in addition to the News app that can be installed on the operating system, the company has now launched an application that displays the latest news in a sidebar.
In essence a news ticker, the so-called News Bar app is currently in beta and can be downloaded on Windows 10 devices from the Microsoft Store.
Microsoft says this app is supposed from the very beginning to work like a taskbar in the operating system.
“Microsoft's Windows News Bar works just like the Windows Taskbar. It's there when you need it, where you need it and how you need it. Customize its appearance in settings to find the experience that's just right for you. If you want to focus, don't worry, you can minimize the News Bar at any time and then bring it back when you're ready for it again,” Microsoft explains in the description of the app.
There are over 4500 news sources in this app, the same one that provide Windows 10 users with content in the News app, and all articles are continuously updated throughout the day.
When installing the News Bar, it shows all articles in a bar just above the standard taskbar in Windows 10. However, the configuration screen allows you to choose between text and image, but also pick a different location for the bar. You can, for instance, move it to the right of the screen, as you can see in the screenshots in our review, and with text and image, everything looks much more modern.
The News Bar app lets you simply hover an article to read more information or just click the title to read the full article. While I was expecting the article to launch in the News app, especially since this was already configured on my device, the News Bar app opens each link in the default browser on the computer.
This is probably an approach that makes more sense, as not everyone uses the News app for Windows 10 in the first place.
At this point, however, the News Bar app only supports news and stocks, and you can configure the latter from the settings screen. Microsoft promises that it’ll add further categories, including weather and sports, in a future update, but at this point, there’s no ETA available.
On the good side, you can configure the country you want the news from, which obviously comes in handy to those who want localized articles. And speaking of configuration, the News Bar app also includes options to change the background color, but also features dark and light themes, which means that it perfectly aligns with the visual style in Windows 10.
Like many other Windows 10 apps, the News Bar app can automatically follow the system theme, so if you’re already using the dark mode in the operating system, it also switches to dark. Move to light and then the light mode is enabled in the News Bar app as well.
Additionally, the News Bar app comes with support for multiple monitors.
One very useful option is to minimize the app and then bring it back in focus after a user-defined time. This comes in handy when working and you don’t want your activity to be interrupted.
All in all, the News Bar app is a helpful new tool, especially for those who want to always be in the know with what’s happening around the world or just want to keep an eye on their favorite topics. There are obviously things to improve, obviously, including adding more categories, as well as notifications when new articles are updated or added, and an option to dismiss certain articles from the bar.
