Generally the app is fine, not great, not terrible, just fine. However, several times a weeks it’s complete and utter trash. There’s a “Top News” section with a video player that auto plays AND automatically goes fullscreen with no way of clearing it. You can pause the video, but as soon as you close it, the video starts playing and then takes over the screen again. If you scroll, it lives at the top of the story…and you guessed it, auto plays and goes fullscreen. I literally cannot read most of this story because of the ad. Separately, it’s also very difficult to find stories. I can search for them, but the search results have no filters or sort options. How do you not have a “sort by date” and “sort by relevance” option? It’s decisions like both of these that make it explicitly clear that the hedge fund owners of the Tribune care ZERO about the Tribune. I wouldn’t bet $1 that anything changes, at least for the positive.

The news reporting is generally good at the Tribune, but the layout of the app includes ads that smash the opening text of several paragraphs up into a column only three-letters wide, so the opening sentence is nearly illegible. The ads are square, but pushed to the right with huge amounts of white (wasted space) to the left where they could sit so that the text is legible. The result is not only difficult to read, but elicits anger at the ads — certainly not the reaction advertisers would like. Compared to other newspaper apps, the design overall seems to have a lot of white/wasted space making it harder to peruse the headlines in the paper. I’ve been reading on an iPad, perhaps this is better on the phone? Even so, how can this be fixed?

Why a 5-star rating? It is resting on its laurels. I’ve given it 5 as wishful thinking for the future. I depend upon the Trib in print and electronically and WTTW for Chicagoland news. Neighborhood news is ably covered by the Hyde Park Herald. For national news I subscribe electronically to The Washington Post and the New York Times. For television, I depend upon News Nation for balanced reporting. I am weary of the opinions and slanted combative coverage provided by MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. News Nation is a refreshing change presented by skillful journalists. For the Tribune I would very much enjoy having more in depth articles and more investigative reporting. Ours is a vibrant city. The newspaper should mirror that. I would like to see the Tribune benefit from setting their in-house expectations much higher and basking in the subsequent praise from the readership.