Disappointed
I was really excited to see there was finally a Substack app and I was really pleased with the experience of the app until I realized I wasn’t receiving all my posts into my inbox. I’m baffled by this but it turns out that rather than including your whole feed inside the app it only shows posts that were sent as emails. making this a essentially a sandboxed email app rather that a Substack specific feed reader. This means that you will be completely aware of any posts your subscriptions post to the web only. And in turn this means that if you want to read ALL of your feed the app (what a crazy idea!) you need to go to each subscription individually to check for any posts not sent as email. Nobody is going to do that. Nobody sane. The funniest part is that the “beta” version of Reader on the web DOES show all post in your feed. So until this is resolved I will be deleting this app and sticking with the web.
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The last bastion of unfiltered truth telling
In a remarkably short period of time sub stack has become the last bastion of honest unedited (and unexpurgated) writing. The collection of writers from Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald to Andrew Sullivan, David French, and Lyons seems to have become the last great hope for free thought against a rising tide of KantAnd groupthink. It is well worth picking some writers and funding them as if you may not have a choice in the future. Because that is a possibility.
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The app works fine and makes things a lot easier.
Five stars.
Just also while I’m here, you might want to put in an option to unarchive posts once they’re in your library archive folder. Only at the moment once you archive something there is no way to reverse it, which could lead to someone archiving a post by accident and it then being stuck there.
Thanks.
Just also while I’m here, you might want to put in an option to unarchive posts once they’re in your library archive folder. Only at the moment once you archive something there is no way to reverse it, which could lead to someone archiving a post by accident and it then being stuck there.
Thanks.
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Can’t adjust really small font size
This app is a mixed bag but has promise.
On the “needs improvement” side: the app only uses a random serif font that appears to be 10 points in size (maybe 9), with text in single space. Neither the font size nor the type are adjustable.
It’s a poor reading experience. And … this is a reading app! It’s job is to produce a great reading experience. Which it decidedly does not do.
Hopefully future improvements will include letting the reader adjust the font size, have greater line spacing and let the reader choose from fonts. These are all pretty common for reader apps.
On the good side: the app’s business logic and organization work flawlessly. It’s nice to be able to see articles from my various Substack subscriptions organized in chronological order. This works well.
So, the apps does the hard things well (management and presentation of content from various subscriptions) and does a quite mediocre job on the garden variety UI stuff that most reading apps already do. Hopefully they will improve that in future updates.
On the “needs improvement” side: the app only uses a random serif font that appears to be 10 points in size (maybe 9), with text in single space. Neither the font size nor the type are adjustable.
It’s a poor reading experience. And … this is a reading app! It’s job is to produce a great reading experience. Which it decidedly does not do.
Hopefully future improvements will include letting the reader adjust the font size, have greater line spacing and let the reader choose from fonts. These are all pretty common for reader apps.
On the good side: the app’s business logic and organization work flawlessly. It’s nice to be able to see articles from my various Substack subscriptions organized in chronological order. This works well.
So, the apps does the hard things well (management and presentation of content from various subscriptions) and does a quite mediocre job on the garden variety UI stuff that most reading apps already do. Hopefully they will improve that in future updates.
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Clean UI. Does not respect your privacy.
While I love the app, it has a clean UI and a pleasant UX to it by elegantly showing that the interface concept of “less is more” can work work effectively.
Unfortunately, I do not like how privacy-invasive the app is. It collects far too much data about you, it’s data that wouldn’t (and couldn’t) be gathered by reading the email newsletters, so Substack is getting greedy for user info with the app.
Once I saw what data of mine the app gathers I immediately deleted it and went back to using email newsletters that don’t invade my privacy.
This was so close to being great, but due to privacy invasions, this counts as a fail, Substack.
Unfortunately, I do not like how privacy-invasive the app is. It collects far too much data about you, it’s data that wouldn’t (and couldn’t) be gathered by reading the email newsletters, so Substack is getting greedy for user info with the app.
Once I saw what data of mine the app gathers I immediately deleted it and went back to using email newsletters that don’t invade my privacy.
This was so close to being great, but due to privacy invasions, this counts as a fail, Substack.
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There’s Finally an App!
I’m excited to see that Substack has an app now so that I can view all of the writers I’m subscribed to. Since I started with reading Glenn Greenwald’s substack, the site has been my go-to for journalism that I find trustworthy and worth reading. Individual people putting out their own content free of corporate pressure (at least that’s what it’s billed as). Having them all come through e-mail was fine generally but I enjoy the smooth movement into the app to see all of my subscriptions on one list instead of hunting for them in my email. I know it just started and will need to be updated so I fully realize the possibility of future issues with the app that will need correcting but nevertheless I’m glad to see that it’s been created.
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I don’t want to be in my inbox. This app is perfect.
I subscribe to a dozen or more Substack newsletters. I’m also one of those people who has a fraught relationship with their e-mail inbox. I don’t want to spend more time in my inbox(es)! This app is delicious nectar from heaven. It just works. My newsletters show up. The reading experience is smooth. The app is quick. And I don’t have to be distracted by the wayward work email or wild email promo when trying to catch up on reading. The inbox reminds me of the good old days of social media. I subscribe to certain creators and what they published is served up to me in chronological order!!! Thanks for building this. Excited to see what comes next.
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