NPR has released an updated version of its app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. NPR News 3.0 brings a number of improvements, including support for the retina displays on the iPhone 4 and new iPod touch, support for the taskbar audio player controls when listening in the background, and the ability to refresh the story list by pulling down on the screen.

But the biggest change is that you can finally search the NPR archive from the app, using the little search icon located next to Newscast in the menu bar.

NPR News 3.0 also lets you swipe left or right to flip between stories in the News and Search sections (but not yet in Programs, so you can’t swipe between Morning Edition or All Things Considered segments, for instance.”

Overall, the new NPR News app is a big improvement over the old version — although the app crashed on me the first few times I tried to tap on a story. Hopefully version 3.0.1 will fix any stability issues.

Still, the price is right. NPR News 3.0 is available as a free download from the App Store.

You can check out a few more screenshots after the break.

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...