Ok content, weak app
Lots of trouble casting. Poorly, cheaply made app which does a disservice to the content. Makes me regret paying for the service.
Excellent content and Outstanding Educators
We were introduced to Great Courses, free access, with our DOD MWR library cards. That service vanished last year so we searched and found Wonderium. Amazingly (using the same email to sign up) all of of our watch history was retained. The only difference was expanded content.
This year (2024) Wonderium has become Great Courses Plus and DOD MWR library access is restored.
However, we decided to renew our personal Great Courses Plus account in order to support their content. We've watched their recordings from 20+ years ago (such as American History) and learned far more from GC+ professors than we did while in HS or college!
Now retired, taking GC+ courses together keeps our conversations invigorating. We watch one lesson every evening together. The brain stimulation is very much needed and leads to a dialogue exhange. After 35+ years of marriage its a fantastic way to dig deeper into our relationship, shared values and individual perceptions.
When our adult children and grandchildren visit, they pick out a course while here and we all learn together which opens up our family discussions at meal times.
This year (2024) Wonderium has become Great Courses Plus and DOD MWR library access is restored.
However, we decided to renew our personal Great Courses Plus account in order to support their content. We've watched their recordings from 20+ years ago (such as American History) and learned far more from GC+ professors than we did while in HS or college!
Now retired, taking GC+ courses together keeps our conversations invigorating. We watch one lesson every evening together. The brain stimulation is very much needed and leads to a dialogue exhange. After 35+ years of marriage its a fantastic way to dig deeper into our relationship, shared values and individual perceptions.
When our adult children and grandchildren visit, they pick out a course while here and we all learn together which opens up our family discussions at meal times.
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best app you’ll ever subscribe to
YAY you went back to the old name! thanks folks. can we get a ton of courses on AI please, it’s a mite urgent.
just checked to see the classic daniel robinson lectures were still there ... phew! new content looks excellent. bravo guys
just checked to see the classic daniel robinson lectures were still there ... phew! new content looks excellent. bravo guys
Broken
Just changed names back from wondrium to Great Courses Plus.
My subscription has disappeared and I no longer have an account.
Poorly thought out rebrand and dishonest owners.
My subscription has disappeared and I no longer have an account.
Poorly thought out rebrand and dishonest owners.
Technical problems trying to cast
This app doesn’t cast to the tv most of the time .
Great content, poor streaming
If I were rating for content alone, I’d probably give Wondrium five stars. I’ve subscribed several times over the years (including back when it was Great Courses Plus) and gotten a lot out of the courses. For a streaming service, though, the app is pretty terrible. If I’m streaming from my phone to my TV and happen to unlock my phone while I’m watching, it resets the entire episode back to the beginning. The pause button often doesn’t work correctly, and then I’m scrambling to try to get the next episode to stop playing. I just feel like if you’re going to sell a streaming service and, undiscounted, charge more than any other streaming service out there, your app should at least work at the level of all the other ones. I have no problem paying for content and I’m happy to pay more for high-quality content — but if you charge a premium price and deliver a subpar technical experience, you need to make some changes.
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Response from developer
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We apologize for the technical issues you're experiencing with our app. Please contact our customer support team at contactus@wondrium.com or 844-330-4495, so they can better assist you.
Generally great, but…
I’m a power user and have watched dozens of courses, some more than once. The app has improved over time, but has one critical flaw- though you can download courses for offline viewing, you need a connection when opening the app before you can start watching your downloaded content. I learned this recently when I tried to watch the hours of content I’d saved for a long flight and found myself unable to access anything. This is incredibly frustrating and makes the download function pointless. Please fix this for those of us who travel frequently and want to bring Wondrium with us!
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Overall decent app.
This review is strictly about the app and not the content at all. Firstly, I very much appreciate that an app for Wondrium even exists. And secondly, it is a decent app. But finally: it could be better.
And my better I’m only going to refer to things that at least to the end user are probably obvious. For starters, the app is not persistent enough, if I don’t lock my phone with it on my screen it often times will not restart when I try to resume from my AirPods. Second, it’d be so great to be able and download an entire series in one fell swoop and not have to tap download to every single episode, which can sometimes be up to 50 times!
That’s it, just these three things would make many users very happy I’m sure of it!
And my better I’m only going to refer to things that at least to the end user are probably obvious. For starters, the app is not persistent enough, if I don’t lock my phone with it on my screen it often times will not restart when I try to resume from my AirPods. Second, it’d be so great to be able and download an entire series in one fell swoop and not have to tap download to every single episode, which can sometimes be up to 50 times!
That’s it, just these three things would make many users very happy I’m sure of it!
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Love the lectures, hate the app.
I use this app on Apple TV. It is insufferably slow. Sometimes sit for 10 minutes to update the subjects list. Frequently required to sign out and sign back in to access content. If the lecture content is so smart, why can’t the app writers be?
Far fewer courses than before? App VERY buggy
I can’t help but think there are far fewer courses in the catalog than when I last subscribed about a year ago, before the branding change. Still $20/mo but *really* seems feels like a limited and sparse array of content than before. There were a lot more history courses last time. What gives? Where’s the rest? Why the branding change? Why charging same amount if you’re reducing the library?
The app has many amateurish bugs. Off-by-one index errors, one course now consistently crashes app iff I tap on it on the Home screen but not if located otherwise, weird random stop/pause. The biggest annoyance is when not on wifi (and have downloaded some chapters, if I pause playback, I have to unlock phone, go to app and it behaves like it’s launching anew then tells me it’s not on network (yeah, duh) then I have to tap downloads then try to remember what chapter I’d been listening to then hope it remembers where I left off. More fun is when off-by-one index error has cropped up (not consistent!) then you get to figure that out. So for heaven’s s sake do not pause?!? Don’t worry it will keep playing in background for every single notification announcement that comes in, so you get to try to differentiate between the two voices. Come on those are amateur bugs.
The app has many amateurish bugs. Off-by-one index errors, one course now consistently crashes app iff I tap on it on the Home screen but not if located otherwise, weird random stop/pause. The biggest annoyance is when not on wifi (and have downloaded some chapters, if I pause playback, I have to unlock phone, go to app and it behaves like it’s launching anew then tells me it’s not on network (yeah, duh) then I have to tap downloads then try to remember what chapter I’d been listening to then hope it remembers where I left off. More fun is when off-by-one index error has cropped up (not consistent!) then you get to figure that out. So for heaven’s s sake do not pause?!? Don’t worry it will keep playing in background for every single notification announcement that comes in, so you get to try to differentiate between the two voices. Come on those are amateur bugs.
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