The challenge
A Gujarat media group wanted its readers on their phones. Its regional Gujarati daily needed apps for Android and iPhone that kept pace with the newsroom and earned ad revenue. Its global edition needed an app of its own for readers on patchy connections. This is the story of that newspaper app development work, built over three generations.
It covers the reader apps only. The newsroom system behind a publisher's website, apps and aggregator feeds is a different project, told in our news and media publishing software case study. Here the focus is on what a reader holds in their hand.
Years after the first app, the group was running two titles. Maintaining four native apps, two titles on two platforms, would have doubled the work of every change.
What we built
A Gujarati news reader. The first app, for Android and iPhone, is in Gujarati from end to end. Its category menu is driven from the newsroom, so editors can add or reorder sections without shipping an app update.
Readers browse, search and comment on stories. Push alerts carry breaking news, and a settings screen lets each reader choose which alerts they get. An ad network integration earns from the readership.
A global edition e-paper app. Readers sign in with email, Facebook or Google and choose their location. The home screen shows the last seven front pages, with a date picker for any recent day.
Stories can be searched, bookmarked and downloaded for offline reading. YouTube and Vimeo videos play inside articles, and Google Translate is built in. A second phase was scoped for app-store subscriptions, audio, live video and an English or Gujarati switch.
A React Native rebuild for both titles.
One codebase serves both newspapers on Android and iOS.
Horizontal section tabs sit over vertical scrolling, with search on the home screen.
Story and photo layouts, trending news, bookmarks, sharing and an e-paper section.
Light, dark and sepia themes, and small, medium or large text.
How it works day to day
Picture a reader of the global edition who lives abroad. They open the app, scan the last seven front pages and pick yesterday's from the date picker. While connected, they download the stories they want, then read them later with no connection at all. Old downloads can be cleared to keep the app light.
Back in the newsroom, editors publish as usual. When they add a section, the apps pick it up without a new release. A breaking story reaches readers who have opted into that kind of alert.
For the development team, a fix or new feature is written once in React Native and reaches both titles on both platforms in the same release.
The result
Readers get the paper's stories in Gujarati on Android and iPhone, with alerts they control. Global readers can save stories and read them offline. Both titles now run from shared code, so a fix reaches both apps on both platforms at once.
What the research says about newspaper app development in India
Indian readers go online in their own language. The Internet and Mobile Association of India and Kantar found that 870 million people, 98% of internet users, accessed the internet in Indic languages in 2024 (IAMAI and Kantar, Internet in India 2024). A Gujarati-first interface meets readers where they already are.
Phones are everywhere in Gujarat. TRAI's figures for the end of June 2026 put overall tele-density in the Gujarat service area at 100.61%, above the all-India figure of 94.31% (TRAI press release 104/2026). A reader app reaches people on the device they already carry.
Platforms compete for the same reader. The Reuters Institute's 2025 Digital News Report found that its mainly English-speaking online sample in India used YouTube (55%) and WhatsApp (46%) for news (Reuters Institute, 2025). A publisher's own app is one place where the relationship with the reader stays direct.
Where AI fits next
None of these runs in the apps yet; they are directions the archive and reading data open up. A model could write short Gujarati summaries of long stories for an editor to approve before they appear in the app.
It could suggest related articles to each reader based on what they read. Push alert wording could be drafted from the headline for a sub-editor to check.
Related reading: The Mobile App Development Process, from Idea to App Store
Planning something similar?
Before you commission a news or e-paper app, settle four questions:
Do you need separate native apps, or can one cross-platform codebase serve every title?
Which parts of the app should editors control without a new release?
Where do your readers lose their connection, and what should work offline?
How will the app earn: ads, subscriptions or both?
The first question gets a full answer in our native vs cross-platform mobile apps guide. You can also read how we run mobile app projects and rebuilds of older apps, or browse more publishing and media work.
