Hawaii News Now

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

1. [R99] 5/5 · US Notification Issue: Excellent app, very reliable. I got an emergency notification from here before the alert went out!!! The traffic updates are also very timely. I used to have an issue with the articles not opening from the notifications but it seems like it was fixed.
2. [R144] 4/5 · US Settings: Traffic should be a divided setting from breaking news
3. [R100] 5/5 · US My go To’s in the mornings!: Excellent up to date;reliable&accurate daily resource and always fresh. Mahalo nui HNN!
4. [R130] 5/5 · US Go to News Island Source: This is my go to news source for everything on the islands. The app has tons of good features too. I highly recommend.
5. [R132] 5/5 · US Full In Depth News Coverage: When I wanted the best full in-depth news coverage by knowledgeable people on the ground about the Maui wildfires, specifically the extent of the actual devastation of Lahaina, what is gone and what remains, where the Lahaina townspeople are, and how to effectively and realistically help - I went to Hawaii News Now! You can trust the hometown News people and their news
6. [R27] 3/5 · US Inconsistent function.: The app is so inconsistent with the livestream feature. Usually the livestream function never works. I appreciate the interface updates, but for folks who do not have local tv access, the livestream is needed and needs to be fixed.
7. [R53] 2/5 · US New version has problems: This most recent version has many issues. (I have iPhone) I like the new style and story list but there are problems with the App. The Ad that pops up when you open it takes forever to close. When you are looking for “Breaking News” alert info it’s so irritating. I have “1” notification bubble that NEVER goes away. I wanted to share an article but the icon to share does
8. [R6] 1/5 · US This App sucks: I guess commercials are more important than reporting the news. Especially the App on Roku as soon as you start watching they have to play a commercial. It’s very frustrating to say the least!
9. [R7] 1/5 · US Advertising Only: What the hell? It was already almost purely ads, now in June 2026 you have to watch an ad just to click on a story, after navigating through more ads!
10. [R11] 1/5 · US Ads: The new update makes using the app a pain. Every chance it gets, it forces a ad and you have to click out of it. Gets old
11. [R19] 1/5 · US User unfriendly news site: This “upgraded” is a pain in the brain to use. It’s is so covered with ads that slows it down and make so frustrating, I hate to check on what’s going on around here and the world.
12. [R3] 1/5 · US Poor app: Hawaii news now doesn’t work for iPhone 16pro and iPad since the latest iOS updates.
13. [R5] 1/5 · US Can’t open the news articles!: Can’t open the news articles. Happens alot! Yes app up to date. Yes strong wifi. Etc etc. The videos are on a whole other level…
14. [R9] 1/5 · US Switch to another news station: Terrible. Never works. The live feed is always down and somehow, if you don’t touch the exact right spot on your phone to enlarge the screen or turn up volume, it will show commercial after commercial.
15. [R10] 1/5 · US Live previous newscasts: Disappointed with the app upgrade. While I am stationed overseas in Japan, I try to watch the morning newscast while getting ready. The new app fails to play, constantly says that it’s unavailable, and I can’t pause to check on other apps while watching the video. It will restart all the time once, I close the app. 😢
16. [R1] 2/5 · US App got worse: The new updated app is junk.. Layout not good.. Cannot share the article no more.. Bring back the old style app
17. [R4] 1/5 · US Show the whole headline: You can only see a few words of the headline, which makes it hard to know if you want to click on the article or not. There is plenty of room to fit the entire headline.
18. [R8] 1/5 · US Not Good: Where do I get the old app back. It was easy to see and read. I probably will not watch HNN anymore if this is my only option.
19. [R16] 3/5 · US Title font size: Font size for titles on the new update on my iPad are way small. Really hard to read. Any way to make font size larger? Thanks!
20. [R13] 2/5 · US App: This app is inaccurate especially when we receive notifications. Please work on this app so we can read in detail about the notifications sent to us . Someone in the new room spells certain words incorrectly which throws us off reading certain phrases. Mahalo
21. [R18] 1/5 · US Nothing is Shareable: The news stories are good but nothing can be shared.
22. [R36] 1/5 · US Horrible update: Latest update sucks. Can’t share news articles. Takes forever to load.
23. [R41] 1/5 · US Functional but very irritating: I’m sorry, but since the March 7 launch, the updated app became unworkable and downright irritating. I can not remove the red alert ball on my iPad nor iPhone home page. No matter what I open or clear, it is constant, unless I turn off notifications. HNN was my primary source of bulletins, but not anymore until you fix that. I even deleted the app and reloaded i
24. [R57] 1/5 · US Alert notification: Notifications alert on iPhone won’t clear off, when all alerts have been looked at. Turned off notifications in settings, but alert still shows on closed app.
25. [R66] 4/5 · US Since Update …: … the app doesn’t clear the notifications. It always shows one (1) notification. Should I delete the app & reload it?
26. [R2] 3/5 · US Very touchy app for live news: The app is very touchy on iPhone and iPad when watching live. One wrong move or touch on my device and I lose the live and have to go back. The mandatory ads that pop up first mean I miss a chunk of news. Today the audio is about 30 seconds ahead of the video. Never would I rely on their weather app since they can’t even get the news app sorted out.
27. [R12] 2/5 · US Unable to go full screen: try to watch news broadcast at full screen and would not go into full screen mode on iPad
28. [R104] 4/5 · US Livestream: Need to update the livestream it keep crashing within 5 on the app and the website
29. [R33] 1/5 · US New HNN App is a Failure: The previous app offered a Previous Newscast feature. The new version does not. I live on the mainland and like to keep up with Hawaii news, but the current app is pretty dismal. Please correct the deficiencies!
30. [R47] 1/5 · US What happened???: I want to stream the 6 pm news at 8:30 pm after coming home from work but I can’t find it! What’s the deal? Is it just me not looking in the right place? It’s driving me crazy trying to find it that I end up watching KITV. If I could give zero stars, I would.
31. [R92] 1/5 · US Fail at searching: I downloaded this app and every time I tried to search for a story I saw on the news, it absolutely never could find it. I would go to Google and it would be the first pop up. I’m not sure what else the purpose of this app is if not to see the news.
32. [R14] 1/5 · US False and misleading information, presented as factual news: Misinformation - not accurate - biased reporting - unreliable Fabricated stories - misleading headlines - propaganda - political agendas Videos don’t play, links attached to alerts do not work - lots of ads & popups
33. [R15] 1/5 · US FBI Director’s snorkeling trip as “Breaking News!”: That’s it, I’m done with deep blue HNN. They report the FBI Director’s snorkeling trip as breaking news, yet are completely silent on the fact that Hawaii has spent none of the fraud investigation funding received from the federal government as intended, and with ZERO indictments. It’s probably lining the pockets of any number of corrupt Hawaii
34. [R54] 1/5 · US Only ads: Every click is an ad. Never up to date. Never timely. Totally left leaning democrat propaganda coverage. The news station used to run by the Mayor of Honolulu………. PROPAGANDA
35. [R82] 2/5 · US Biased News Reporting: Only use for local severe weather reporting. Don’t use if you actually want an unbiased news report.
36. [R74] 1/5 · US Drains battery: Most recent update drains battery used 22hrs by constantly updating. I turned off all settings to see if it helped, but still using lots of battery power. Hopefully will get better.
37. [R25] 1/5 · US updated app sucks: they updated the app and it sucks even more. the only reason i had this news app was because the UI was different than the other hawai’i news apps. now they’re all the same and it sucks. there are SO MANY ADS. every time you do anything on the app an ad pops up. switching between articles? ad. ads in the beginning middle and end of ads. ads play automatically out loud with no pa
38. [R46] 1/5 · US Unfortunate: I rarely review apps due to the fact that opinions are subjective, but the recent update to HNN is just unacceptable. UI functionality is subpar, and presentation is unappealing. It reminds me of a MySpace page. Please roll the update back.
39. [R40] 2/5 · US I cannot share any of the links anymore. Why???: I have love this App since it came out. All of the sudden I am unable to share any of these links from the App. I had deleted the App then reinstalled it through the App Store. Still nothing will work. I have to go online to the website to email what I want to myself or a friend. This is so frustrating!!
40. [R22] 1/5 · US Live doesn’t work: Loved this app til love stopped working. Now just ads.