Update May 22– why in the world can’t they fix the bugs in this app? We are paying for premium ad-free, yet frequently I,m blocked from reading a story because “the content is for subscribers”. I then check my account- yes the subscription is acknowledged— so why is the display not working correctly? I’ve been using this app for years and generally satisfied. Less satisfied this year with stale content that lingers for days, weeks, month. Then came the implementation of paid subscriptions. I don’t have a problem with that decision— gotta pay the bills and the newspaper business in general is suffering as the public migrates away from wanting to read newspapers. (Very sad) I did sign up for a premium subscription earlier this summer when it was introduced - despite the annoying video ads smack in the middle of articled. Now my subscription doesn’t work thru itunes —Apple shows it as still being valid on monthly renewal, but even though I go to settings and click on restore purchase, the app will not acknowledge it and I have no premium content. Folks, this is incompetence. Get it together! I’m not going to pay you to not function.

This use to be my favorite news app. But ever since they added a paywall it’s gone down hill. It’s always had an ad component to it, and you could subscribe to go without ads for a reasonable fee. This use to work very well, but with the new changes, even if you’re paying for ad free the app “conveniently” forgets your subscription status so that your frequently inundated with ads anyways. On top of that, since they introduced the subscription model for content, more and more content is becoming “subscribers only”. Meaning even if you’re paying for ad-free, you’re still not able to view a lot of content. I finally figured “hey, if I just cancel my ad-free and subscribe to the premium plus ad-free, maybe I won’t see ads anymore and I’ll have all the content available.” No dice. I’ve now paid for a more expensive subscription that the app doesn’t want to recognize at all. I’ve rebooted, re-downloaded, and restored purchases. None of those seems to work. So unless they fix their poorly implemented subscription service, it’s really only a 2 star app at best.

It used to be my first stop, my number one app for literally years. Then they started charging a subscription to give you access to some articles, that was fine, I understand why. Some of the articles seemed great and I did consider subscribing, but it was just way too expensive especially when compared to other premium news apps. Still, I generally kept it as my first stop. Then, over the past year or so they have become increasingly aggressive about pushing the subscription service. Pop up’s and push overs on almost every article, every time. It’s like playing one of those annoying freemium games where it’s interrupted with an ad every 5 seconds. And here’s the funny thing: I actually didn’t mind the actual advertisements on the site ever, like the real ads. They had an ok mix. But It’s the constant house ads that are relentlessly pushing the subscription service that has made this app unusable. I have several news apps on my phone and I pay for two, but after the way this app has evolved I would never shell out for it. Sentimental perhaps, because I used to enjoy the print edition when I traveled more, and I read the app every day for literally years. But I was sad to delete it today.