Apple News on the iPhone and iPad is excellent and in these times of fake news it is good to have quality sources. Customise News to show the sources you want and the way it presents them.

Change the font size

One simple change you might want to make to the way Apple News looks is to set the ideal font size. Different people are comfortable with different sizes of text and some like small text so more fits on the screen while others require larger text.

There are two ways to change the text and one way is from within a news story. Open Apple News on the iPhone and tap a story. In the top right corner is aA. Tap it and there is a small and large A. Tap them to increase or decrease the text size.

This only affects the news story displayed, so don't use it if there are many stories with text too small or too large. It would be crazy to manually adjust every new story you read.

Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size. Use the slider there to set the default text size. The setting is not specific to the News app and it is system-wide, but News bases the text size on it. Increase the text size here and it is reflected in every news story.

News Settings

Open the Settings app and press News to access some useful settings. Set Always Show "Next Up" and Show Story Previews as you prefer.

The setting that has the biggest change is Restrict Stories in For You (your home news feed). Turning this switch on tells the News app to show only stories from the news sources you select. No others. We will see how to select news sources in a minute.

If it is switched off, the News app tries to guess what you might like based on your interests and previous stories read, and it inserts some stories from elsewhere among the sources you specify. I find it best if this switch is off, but it is up to you.

Follow news sources

Tap the Following button at the bottom of the News app and there are some suggestions. Tap the heart if you want to see stories from the suggested sources. Press SEE ALL to see more suggestions.

The best way to find news sources is to search. Enter a word into the search box at the top, such as 'sport' if you are interested in sports news. You can be more specific and name the sport if you want.

The top result shows Sport as a topic and tapping the heart tells the News app that you are interested in sports news stories. Further down are sport channels - press SEE MORE CHANNELS to see all sources and tap the heart to add them as a source.

Further down are topics and these try to narrow down the subject by providing alternatives and phrases, like 'sports managers', 'sports equipment', 'sports in...' wherever you live. Tap the hearts to show your interest.

Return to your home news feed by pressing the For You button at the bottom of the screen and now the news stories reflect your interests.

Remember that setting, Restrict Stories in For You? It decides whether you see only stories from your selected sources or whether it includes related sources.

Save stories for later

News is a fast-moving subject and the For You news feed is constantly changing throughout the day. If you see a story that interests you, but you don’t have time to read it right now, do not think you can read it later. The news feed may be updated and the story is no longer there. Save it!

Swipe right to left over a news story in the feed and three buttons appear, one of which is Save. In fact, if you swipe too far and fast left, Save is automatically applied.

If you see a news story you want to read later, swipe it left to save it. Press the Saved button at the bottom of the screen to see all of your saved stories. They stay there until you remove them by swiping left over them. Again, swiping slowly reveals three buttons, but swipe longer and faster left and the Don't Save option is automatically selected and the news story removed.

Clear your history

Press Saved at the bottom and then History at the top to see a list of stories you have read. This enables you to read a story again if you want to. I rarely do, but you have the option if you need it. Tap Clear in the top right corner to clear your news reading history.