Now That Twitter Is Dead, Here’s How To Stay In The Know

(CTN News) – I deleted Twitter from my phone and tablet a few weeks ago. The reasons I chose to do this were obvious, so I am not here to write an essay about why. Instead, I want to provide some tips if you, like me, used Twitter to stay up to date on news and events but no longer want to do so.

I used a lot of the tools here before I deleted Twitter, but they have become more useful and prominent without Twitter. Some of these may be obvious and some may be a revelation to you, but here’s how I keep up with general news and topics I’m interested in.

There are some long-form magazine articles and breaking news in the Apple News app

News has been available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac for years, but it hasn’t really been lauded for its usefulness for people who read long-form articles.

It’s far from flawless, and yes, even if you pay $9.99 / month (or get it bundled with an Apple One plan) for a News Plus subscription, you still see ads in articles (though I don’t know how it differs from buying a magazine on the newsstand), and you need an Apple device to access it.

Even so, Apple News always provides me with top headlines from events around the world and curated selections based on my reading history and the topics I select. I can also receive push notifications from publications I follow, as well as sports scores and reports from my favorite teams.

With my News Plus subscription, I can access long-form articles from The Atlantic, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and many others for a flat fee.

No other service offers me so much long-form content for such a low price as this one. In the past, I relied on my Twitter feed to fill my Pocket queue with things to read later, but now Apple News does it all for me.

For local news and short blogs, download the Google News app

Every time I open Google News, it displays a curated list of news articles based on my interests. Google News provides me with more local updates, whether it’s upcoming weather, local politics, or restaurant news, than Apple News does. It’s available for free on iOS and Android.

It does not remember my logins to paywalled sites well and relies too much on Google’s AMP format, but it has provided a wealth of read-later options since Twitter stepped away.

On Android phones and iPhones, Google’s Discover product provides a similar feed of articles just to the left of your home screen. My experience with Discover is that it provides terrible recommendations more often than helpful ones, so I usually just go straight to Google News.

RSS reader: curate headlines from websites you care about

RSS is still around and works great for keeping up with updates from various websites. RSS readers have been around for longer than Twitter, and they’re one of my first apps I open in the morning.

It takes more work to set up an RSS reader than using Apple News or Google News, but the reward is that you’re inputting the sources yourself, so you’re in control.

For syncing, I use Feedly (the free version, I have never been compelled to buy it) which I plug into Reeder for iOS and Mac as well as Focus Reader for Android.

The feed is comprised of several dozens of sources, including mostly tech news sites, as well as some smaller blogs that I have been following for years that update infrequently.

SEE ALSO:

Try a Galaxy Fold And You’ll Never Look Back