We compared Google News and Apple's built-in News app for the iPhone to see which one is better - and there's a clear winner

A few months back, I had a realization: I wasn't paying enough attention to current events.

Sure, I work in the news business. I watch the news scroll past on Twitter all day long, and there are TVs tuned to news channels in my newsroom. Sometimes, I can hear my colleagues literally reporting the news around me.

But that news overload didn't make me more informed, it just made me want to tune it all out. And at a time when there's a wild new headline almost every day, this is not the time to stop paying attention.

To solve this problem, I turned to technology. I needed to make the news both unavoidable and digestible, giving me the option to skim the headlines or dive deeper. That solution presented itself in the form of a widget on my iPhone that appears when I swipe right on my home screen.

I started with Apple's News widget, but then I switched to Google's when it redesigned Google News in May.

After using both Apple News and Google News the course of several months, I've noticed the strengths and weaknesses of both - along with a clear winner: