The Microsoft News app gets a new logo and COVID-19 news and alerts

Following the Microsoft News app for Android, its iOS version has now also gotten a new icon, along with COVID-19 news and alerts, including a live tracker of the pandemic.

The popular news app has now been downloaded over a million times on Android, and is also available on Windows 10 via the Microsoft Store.

According to Microsoft, the app delivers breaking news and trusted reporting from the world's top journalists, via a partnership between the company and hundreds of publishers in several countries. It conveniently features a dark mode and a widget, and is free to download, without any limits on the viewing of articles or videos.

Some notable included news sources for politics and opinion articles are The New York Times, FOX News, NBC News, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, CBS News and CNN, BBC News. Available are also sources for entertainment news, celebrity, lifestyle, money and investing, and sports.

On the subject of Microsoft apps, we recently reported on Microsoft collaborating with Samsung to improve the Your Phone app, which now comes built into Windows 10, and is available to Android and iOS users.

The idea behind that app is to seamlessly integrate smartphone notifications, photos and other files between the user's phone and computer. Currently, only select Samsung devices support the app's newest feature, which allows for drag-and-drop functionality between the phone or tablet, and the Windows 10 computer running Your Phone.

Earlier this month, Microsoft also updated their OneDrive app for Android, adding support for Face Unlock, which is part of the official Android 10 biometrics API, as a convenient alternative to the already existing fingerprint unlock option.