Real store listing. Store data comes from public listings; the assessment type and evidence coverage are labeled on this page.
Appworthy

The Desert Sun

Breaking News + eNewspaper

USA TODAY Co., Inc.
Review signals only
Download on theApp Store
App Store rating4.4★1.7K ratings
PriceFreeListed price
Age12+Store age rating
Size196 MBiPhone download
CategoryLifestyle
DeveloperUSA TODAY Co., Inc.

At a glance

Full report

Review signals only — 1 user-reported signal. Review signals, not findings. Nothing here is an assessment.

Review signals 1

From review signals only, 18 Oct 2026.

The store currently lists version 8.13.2, updated 2026-09-26.

Preview

Screenshot 1Screenshot 2Screenshot 3Screenshot 4Screenshot 5Screenshot 6Screenshot 7Screenshot 8

Store screenshots supplied by the developer.

About this app

From critically acclaimed storytelling to powerful photography to engaging videos — The Desert Sun app delivers the local news that matters most to your community.

APP FEATURES:

• Access all of our in-depth journalism, including things to do around town, sports coverage from high school to the pros, and much more.

• Enjoy a streamlined, fast-loading experience that makes it easy to view the stories, photos, and videos that matter to you.

• Get breaking news, sports scores, and weather alerts with real-time notifications tailored to your interests.

• Customize your experience by saving your favorite stories, adjusting text size, using night mode, or reading offline.

• eNewspaper: Just like our print edition but accessible on your mobile devices. And access to USA TODAY and 200+ local eNewspapers.…

From the developer’s store description.

For developers and the curious

The full report

The evidence, sources, measurements and versions behind every label above.

Findings and evidence

No findings published
No findings are published for this listing. These are review signals, not findings: nothing here is an assessment.

Review signals 1

Recurring themes across the reviews we scanned. Each links to what reviewers report.

What reviewers report

167 reviews read · 1 review signal

167 reviews scanned. These are signals from public reviews, not findings. Nothing here is an assessment.

Aggressive ad load

Review signal, not a finding

10 reviews · 6.0% of reviews scanned

Puzzles — Links on the puzzles are regularly broken always forcing you to watch ads and never taking you back to the puzzle. Get your act together,

1★ · App Store · 2025-10-26

Stop the pop up ads — Why am I seeing annoying pop up ads on a paid subscription.

1★ · App Store · 2024-08-02

Don’t like it! — Somewhat clunky now and I hate the pop up ads. The newspapers have regular ads and the pop ups are really annoying It is hard to swipe and adjust the screen when enlarged.

3★ · App Store · 2024-01-19

A sampled review illustrates one person’s experience. It does not establish a finding on its own.

Measurements

5 measured · 3 not assessed

Supporting measurements. They are not a complete list of possible harms or positives. “Not assessed” means we could not measure it — never zero, never a pass.

From store data and reviews

Developer replies to reviews
Replies to fewer than 1 review in 20
Price in the store description
States no price and billing period
Cancelling, in the store description
Does not say how to cancel
Themes reported by reviewers
No theme reported
Counted from the reviews we have read for this app. "No theme reported" means no theme reached our reporting threshold — it is not a finding that nothing is wrong with this app, and we do not say it is.
Five-star share of ratings
65–79% five-star
Arithmetic on the stores' own published rating counts. It says nothing about why the ratings fall where they do.

In the app package we scanned

No package has been scanned for this app, so nothing is published about what it ships. That is an absence of evidence, not a finding.

Sensitive permissions
Not assessed
No package has been scanned for this app
Analytics or tracking SDKs in the scanned package
Not assessed
No package has been scanned for this app
Advertising SDKs in the scanned package
Not assessed
No package has been scanned for this app

Measurement vocabulary 1.4 · how these are measured

Versions and dates analysed

Review signals only

Review signals only. No automated analysis of the app itself has been run, so there is no analysed version to report; the signals were read from public reviews on 18 Oct 2026.

Store update history

Each store’s release notes, as the developer wrote them. They are the developer’s words, not ours.

App Store

Version 8.13.2 · 2026-09-26
• This update includes bug fixes and stability improvements.
Version 8.10.2 · 2026-05-27
• This update includes bug fixes and stability improvements.

Assessment record

Status
Review signals only
App identifier
the-desert-sun-apple-531366663
Review signals scanned
18 Oct 2026
Sources used
User reviews
Reviews read
167
Package examined
No package scan
Measurement vocabulary
1.4
Human inspection
Not completed

Store facts

App Store

What the stores publish. Store ratings are the stores’ numbers, not Appworthy’s, and are never averaged across stores.

App Store

Store rating
4.41 ★ · 1,730 ratings
Version
8.13.2
Updated
26 Sep 2026
Price
Free
Age rating
12+
Size
196 MB
Open in App Store
Developer
USA TODAY Co., Inc.
Category
Lifestyle
Listing price
Free

No itemized purchase list is available for this listing.

Method and limits

What this report can and cannot show

How a review signal works

A review signal is produced automatically from public app reviews by a classifier — never by a hands-on Appworthy test, and never by a human analyst. It exists so a real, not-yet-audited app can carry more than a blank “Not yet tested” listing, without ever being mistaken for an assessment.

A theme only appears above once at least 5 distinct reviews corroborate it — one angry review can never tag an app. These thresholds are published settings and may be tuned as coverage grows.

It carries no confirmed findings — reviews are one kind of evidence, and nothing here has been hands-on tested. The moment Appworthy publishes a full assessment of this app, it replaces this signal, permanently.

Limits of this report

  • A package scan is static. It identifies code and text in one Android build. It does not measure a live ad session, test a deletion request, or count the steps needed to cancel.
  • Reviews keep their sample. A review-only charge shows distinct reviewers, the share and the sample size, and is published only once it clears that label’s published threshold. Calibration labels are machine-drafted and not yet confirmed by a person.
  • Not assessed is a state. It is never a zero and never a pass.
  • A missing label is not a clean bill of health. It means the evidence did not support one, not that the app is problem-free.
Not yet human-reviewed. A human review replaces this review-derived signal with hands-on, recorded measurements. Hands-on inspections are not yet open.
Review thresholds Read the methodology For developers

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