How to create a short news app like InShorts?

7 min readApr 28, 2022

The morning ritual of getting up and grabbing a cup of tea is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Technology is advancing day by day and the mobile phone industry is moving from one milestone to another. For a generation raised on Snapchat and Buzzfeed, how can those pesky old newspapers be relevant in the era of gen z? Said that, the news industry is trying its best to keep its relevance in the world of smartphones and tablets. A perfect example of such an app is InShorts, which is becoming the top favorite of people who love reading news.

However, the question is how to make a similar kind of app like this. If you are pondering over this, read through the article and get your app developed.

What is InShorts and its USP?

Founded in 2013, the InShorts app was designed to give you the latest and most trending news stories in a short format. The stories are usually 60 words or less and are presented in a timeline on the app’s home screen which stands to be the USP of the app. This timeline gives you access to certain sections like World, Business, Sports, Entertainment, etc., as well as an option to add your own feed of stories for easy browsing.

Why is InShorts app popular among people?

With more than 15 million downloads across the iOS and Android platforms, InShorts became the most popular app in India. Here’s the list of features that helped the app to generate $14M in 2019–2020:

News gathering and summarisation:

InShorts gathers news stories from all of the major news outlets in India. They use an AI algorithm to read these stories and identify the main points, then summarize them so that they can be digested quickly. Instead of reading the articles in-depth, InShorts brings the top news in just 60 words.

News validation:

InShorts has a team of 80 people who verify that each story is real, relevant and provides accurate information.

Selection of news stories for the app:

These verified summaries are used as the content for the app, but not all summaries are included in each user’s feed; instead, users can choose which categories they want to follow or ignore from their profile settings (e.g., politics or sports). The app then selects stories from those categories and displays them randomly to users when they open it up on their phone.

Categories

You can customize the categories of short news you prefer to read by selecting the “Categories” option in the menu. There are several categories like Business, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, National, World, Technology, Miscellany, Opinion and Videos.

Toss to Share

Toss lets you share all the important articles and news with your friends. You can also share any story with your friends on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and more.

Feed

When you choose a section from this list, you’ll see all of the stories currently featured in that category. Each story is displayed on its own card with headlines and images from relevant articles or videos. You can tap the heart at any time during your reading session to save it for later reference; once saved, these items will appear in a separate hearted tab where they can be accessed again later on demand.

How to develop a short news app like Inshorts?

Plan your project

Start by developing a detailed plan. You must clearly understand your concept and should also consider its feasibility on the market. Analyze whether this concept can solve your users’ problems or not? Only after you are sure of it, move forward with the development process.

Your plan should include:

The expected costs of developing the app from beginning to end
A list of all features which are planned for each phase of product development
The expected timeline for completion
What is the purpose of the app?
What is your target audience?
What is your USP?
How will you make money from this app?
How will you promote your app in order to attract users?

2. Create a perfect design for your product

Design a prototype of your app (or multiple versions of it), so that you can get an idea about how it will look in reality. This will also help you save valuable time and money as if any changes need to be done, it could be easily done in the prototype stage than at the advanced stage of development.

3. Hire a developer

Now that you have a clear idea of the features, steps, and plans for developing an app like Inshorts, it’s time to start building your app.

A good developer should be able to identify potential issues and make recommendations about which features would be best for their project, as well as how much money they’re willing to invest in developing it.

The following points will help you in understanding how to develop an app like Inshorts:

Choose a platform: Mobile apps and web apps are the two primary platforms for getting your app noticed by your target audience. Both types of apps have their own respective pros and cons, so it’s important to consider what features and functionality are key to the success of your app before deciding which platform is right for you.
Choose a programming language: In order to develop a robust, feature-rich app, you need a programming language that can handle all of its intricacies. The most popular languages used in mobile app development today are Java, Python and PHP.

4. Launch a Beta version of your app

After implementing all the necessary features, it’s time to launch a beta version of your app. A beta version is a testing version of an application that you can use to identify bugs and errors. It’s the best way for you to collect feedback from users before releasing the final product.

5. Testing

According to the statistics, almost 80 percent of apps are deleted after the first use, and this is mainly because most of them have bugs and issues.

To begin with, testing is an integral part of app development, which ensures the efficiency and effectiveness of your application. It is basically a process that allows you to discover errors in your product and make it error-free. The testing stage helps you analyze the functionality of your app, which indicates whether the application can meet specific goals or not.

6. Launch your app and market it

The final step is to launch your app. After launching it, keep a close eye on the performance of your app. Since you’re almost sure to find some bugs and glitches, release regular updates to fix them.

Once you’ve fixed all major issues, take a look at user reviews and feedback. This will help you understand what features users like about your app and what features need more work. Based on the reviews and feedback provided by users, release new updates with improvements suggested by them.

Get your own app like InShorts by hiring the right development team

Inshorts is a popular app in the news category. It provides short news briefs to users in a catchy way. The app has been able to garner a huge user base and has several other apps that serve different purposes. You too can develop an app like Inshorts with Idea Usher’s help. We have experience working on apps that are similar to Inshorts and hence we can provide the required advice, along with development services.

Idea Usher helps you from step 1 of your app development process, i.e., ideation stage, all the way till your app is ready for deployment. Our team consists of experienced app developers who can turn your vision into reality in a smooth manner. We also have a team that provides marketing and digital marketing services for mobile apps.

We aim to help turn your ideas into successful apps and hence we work closely with our clients throughout their app development journey. Contact us today to get started!

FAQS

How to monetize an app like InShorts?

The app monetizes through advertisements featured on its platform, as well as via subscriptions for premium features such as unlimited access to all content. You can also offer in-app purchases which allow users to upgrade their subscription plan at any time.

Which factors affect the cost of developing an app like InShorts?

There are many factors that affect how much it will cost to develop an app like InShorts. However, these are the following factors that play an important role in determining the cost of an app: