ZNews: News Organized by Time of Day
A news feed with no stopping point
Reading news on a phone usually means scrolling a long list. Old and new stories blur together, and the reader never knows when to stop. ZNews was built to replace that habit with something that has a rhythm.
The app pulls articles from major outlets through RSS. Instead of an endless feed, stories are grouped by topic in an Instagram-style story format, and a 24-hour digest lets readers close the day in one short pass.
Choosing stories by time of day
The key difference is how ZNews picks stories for the time of day. Morning, noon and evening call for different kinds of reading, so the recommendations are calculated for each slot. Each session, the app sends a notification with new stories for that slot, so the reader does not have to open the app and search.
ZNews is built with React Native and Expo, so one codebase runs on both Android and iOS. Push notifications go through Firebase Messaging.
Shipped to the stores, then closed
ZNews was released on Google Play and the App Store. I handled the plan, features, design and code myself. What I did not reach was the number of users I had expected. So I decided to close the project.
The repository records 64 commits, from May 2022 to October 2026. The project is no longer in development.
Tech Stack
React Native
Expo
Firebase