The Mercury News
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Prices are current as of 10 Sept 2026.
The Mercury News has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to The Mercury News
| The Mercury News |   KRON4 News |   ABC7 Bay Area |   KQED: Bay Area Culture & News |   ABC10 Northern California News |   Sacramento Bee News California |   KSBW Action News 8 - Monterey |   The San Diego Union-Tribune |   NBC Bay Area: News & Weather |   CalMatters |   San José Spotlight | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.2 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.9 | 4.8 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Reviews | 907 | 17K | 16K | 9.4K | 5.3K | 4.9K | 3.6K | 2.2K | 926 | 18 | 2 |
| Released | 2011 | 2011 | 2010 | 2011 | 2011 | 2010 | 2012 | 2016 | 2009 | 2024 | 2024 |
| Monthly price | — | — | — | — | — | $15.99 | — | $5.99 | — | — | — |
| Annual price | — | — | — | — | — | $99.99 | — | $199.99 | — | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest.
The Mercury News reviews
4.2 out of 5, based on 907 reviews.
What people like
- Easy to tap and swipe through stories
- Fast and efficient loading times
- Looks more polished than the old version
What they complain about
- App crashes immediately when you open it
- Keeps losing your place when rotating screen
- Ads pop up even though you pay
- Hard to zoom in and read text
Wow!
I am impressed by the efficiency of this app, and how easy it is to use!
Too many bugs. It’s hardly readable
Annoying UI. Jumps around the page seemingly on its own volition. The audio is so poorly executed that unless you stay on the page and make sure it doesn’t move, or heaven forbid screen shuts it stops and can’t be restarted! I only continue my subscription because it’s my local paper. Other papers have these problems under control, why can’t they?
Today’s release 4.0.2
App fails to load. Starts up, then ends. Never gets far enough to load any editions. Update: started working after multiple attempts.
Clearing Ads
I really hate that clearing (clicking the “x”) on the ads that randomly pop up results in the app jumping back to Page 1. And given that I am a paid Mercury news subscriber, why am I having to deal with these stupid ads anyway?
Is this that he San Jose Mercury News?
In keeping with its shoddy journalism, there is no indication that this App is the SJ Mercury News. There are many publications around the world titled "Mercury News" but this news organization is too inept to tell would be purchasers of the app which news paper it represents. Fail.
Great app with easy navigation
I love reading the news with this app.the ability to read stories just by tapping on it.swiping to the next and previous stories, searching. All done well here
The text to speech feature only works as long as the display is at least partially on
I want to be able to listen to articles in full without having to fiddle around with the phone the whole time to make sure the display doesn’t go dark . The fact that the text to speech feature stop working as soon as the display goes dark makes the whole app much less valuable for me.
Thank you
Downloading pages take time. It's more like viewing pictures of scanned newpaper pages.
Improved?
The earlier version was far better than this new improved version. Access to a network is required to read the paper whereas the earlier version downloaded the entire paper allowing it to be read offline. When articles are read one cannot go directly from one sections articles to the next sections articles. Too many quirks to be enhanced. Give me back the earlier version please.
Was an HTML reader, now forced to app, dislike resets to main page
I already pay a lot for the paper, and there are ads in the paper, now there are ads in the app. And, if I don’t remember to close it, and just zoom in, then close it later, the app reverts back to the fist page. Then I have to navigate back to my previous location. Also, I find that occasionally, it tap the screen inadvertently, and I’m back at the last section.
Nearly Unreadable
This app must be decades old; most of the newspaper is unreadable. First, you can’t expand the viewer window beyond its tiny dimensions. Second, some articles expand and can be read with a larger font. But, the majority of articles don’t expand at all and remain in a tiny page view. It doesn’t get much worse than this.
New app software cannot handle rotations
The new app looks nice, but when you want to rotate the screen 90 degrees so you can have a wide view to read on your iPhone for example, the app completely loses its place and puts you on some random page. This software bug makes it difficult to read small type.
Faulty Page Link
The biggest problem is that the continue to the next page link behaves just like the tap on the text does. It should go to the confined page in the SAME display mode like version 3.5.x did. Until this bug is fixed I’d prefer to use version 3.5.
Latest app crashes 2 to 3 times before opening
Been using this app for a couple of years. It has some basic UI flaws such as arrows and the like requiring exact press in a small area, but has been generally sound. Since the last update, it crashes 2 to 3 times whenever opening before allowing me to use it.
Liked the old app better
Hard to read an article with the new app if it continues on another page.
Great newspaper but the app isn’t
I really like having an online version of the daily newspaper but the new app is constantly over reacting to my touch as I move the page, scroll or zoom in. When a new view opens it’s blank so it’s not like the old app that showed the article, instead I have to back out to get back to where I was. Often moving to the next page is difficult without getting that blank image. This is the only option so I will continue to use it but I hope that it will become easier to use.
Early May update crashes on my iPad
App was fine but the latest update consistently crashes (starts briefly then crashes). Normally I’d say the app is at least a 4 but it’s a 0 if it won’t start!
Poor navigation features
I want the down revision version. The new upgrade has an overlay at the top of every page, requiring action on each page to see the top of the page. There are no longer jump section buttons, so every page must be swiped. The upgrade makes reading the Merc so much more work
Poor navigation on iPad
This app is a mess when trying to scroll on an iPad in Landscape orientation. Swiping upward only works in the middle of the screen, not in the margin. Swiping upward in the margin usually scroll sideways to the next article, losing your position in the article you were reading... position jumps back to the top, very irritating. Other apps have solved scrolling. Mercury News (auth0?) tried to reinvent scrolling and made it terrible. And when I try to log in using my saved passwords, the domain is "auth0"? So mercurynews.com doesn't fill in! Pick 1 domain please! The website version is easier to use.
Latest update does not run.
I really liked this app until yesterday. The last update does not run. Crashes every time I try to bring it up. iPad Air iOS 17.4.1. I have deleted and re-downloaded, same thing happens. Someone is shirking their duty to test new code. I rebooted the iPad and the app still crashes while it is loading. UPDATE: this app was working fine on my iPad Pro, running iOS 17.4.1. Now it crashes on that device as well. I cannot access my online subscription at all. What is the difference between this app and the one named Mobile?
Article Continuation Links Dropped; Still Good
I still like reading a digital replica of the physical paper. The old version had links that let you easily jump back and forth as you read articles. The new version drops those for whatever reason. If you touch a story, you can still read it in a single wall of text, but for me, that defeats the whole point of a newspaper layout reading experience. Hope to see that come back in a future update.
Version 4.0.2 does not work
Version 4.0.2 will not open on my iPad nor iPhone. Previous version was fine.
New App changes a step backward
Besides now having ads on an app where I pay user fee’s, the readability is severely limited. The pages start in a era condensed full view and the double click to expand it to fill the page is gone. Now you have to use your thumbs to expand and move the paper all over the page. For those who like to read the entire paper it isn’t easy. I’m in the tech software business and this was a definite step back for the user interface. Most likely will result in moving to another news source since there is little local reporting.
V.4.0.2 crashes upon start-up
Previous rev stopped working (wouldn’t load at all); and now after deleting and installing v.4.0.2 does the same. Using on iPad Pro (4thGen) w/ iOS 17.4.1
Good, solid app, but missing a few things
Overall the user experience of the new app, particularly the launch of the app, is more polished than the old app, but it is missing a few options that the previous version had.========= I view the app on an ipad mini. The old app allowed me to expand the content so that the text was bigger and it was much easier to read while being able to quickly go from page to page. While in this zoomed-in state, with the older version, I could scroll down or advance to the next page. I cannot do this on the new app, and the text appears very small now. If I zoom in on the page I have to zoom out so that I can go to the next page. The is very awkward (having to zoom in, and then out on every page), so I just live with the tiny font. This is significant and is the main reason I rated the app so low. =========== Navigating to other section of the paper is harder to do.
Recent update completely broke it!
When I launch it, it just shows splash screen and exits. Every. Single. Time. Very frustrating.
No longer opens on my IPad
Updated to the most recent iteration and it crashes immediately. Cannot open. Please fix.
The Mercury News FAQ
- Is The Mercury News free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 175 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does The Mercury News have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to The Mercury News?
- KRON4 News (4.7 from 17,404 reviews), ABC7 Bay Area (4.6 from 16,246 reviews) and KQED: Bay Area Culture & News (4.9 from 9,416 reviews).
The Mercury News download
Last updated 2 years ago.
The Mercury News sells in 175 countries. It was released 15 years and 2 months ago, on 28 Jul 2011. It holds a 4.2 rating from 907 reviews.
Supports 2 languages: English, French.
How much does The Mercury News make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.