Leave a Review NPR
Perpetually glitchy.
For three years now, this app constantly plays the next segment at some random spot in the next segment. If you want to listen to All Things Considered or Morning Edition hands-free, it is absolutely impossible. You periodically have to grab your phone, unlock, open the app, launch the player, and then scroll the finicky slider back to the beginning when the next segment inevitably starts at some random point. Often this random start is very close to the end of the next segment and you only have seconds before it is lost to the “already played” list. Love NPR! This app is beyond frustrating; especially while driving, doing the dishes, painting, showering, climbing a ladder, gardening, riding a bike, sweeping the floor… living life, etc. I have actually cracked my phone because I had to pull it out of my pocket to launch the transport slider to swipe a segment to the start. I have nearly avoided a few major driving accidents because I am constantly being forced to reach into my pocket to pull out my phone to correct the random random start of the next segment. It’s a weird and frustrating bug, and it’s been around for three years! I’m not the only one reporting this bug.Show lessThebigbigbeb
A couple specific fixable bugs
I enjoy this app and use it daily; the playlist has some issues, the biggest of which is pretty clear: the handoff from one story to another. If you are listening to a story that is, say, 3:15 long, and the next item is, say 6:20 long, when the app begins the next selection, it does not reset the “bookmark” (the point at which you are in the selection to which you are listening) so you begin listening to the new track at 3:15 in. It’s a nuisance to have to manually go back to the beginning of the track. Seems like a very easy fix. Also, adding a new selection to the playlist while you are listening to the playlist always creates a clear audible glitch, which varies from a brief pause, to playing a disorienting random snippet from one of the tracks for up to a couple of seconds. Also, the app fails to properly interact with iOS: the Lock Screen interface is unpredictable (sometimes works sometimes not) and lacks the 15- and 30-second-skip features. Still a useful app; needs some fixes. When addressed I would change to 5 stars.Show lessDisneyDisciple
Playlist items don’t always start at beginning
Why is it that, after all these years, NPR still can’t make an ap that simply lets me listen to all stories from morning edition one after the other, in order, without stopping or skipping several minutes of random stories? This seems pretty basic folks…Skotsmalls
Inconsistent Playback and Instability
For years the NPR app has proven to have unreliable playback. During my commute in the morning, I add “Morning Edition” to the play list and in the evening commute home, I’ll do that same for “All Things Considered”. The app often stops playing after a story is finished yet there are still several stories left in the playlist. More often, I’ll find that the next story that is played starts somewhere in the middle rather than at the beginning. It almost seems that UIDs for stories are cached and that a previously UID (or not so unique, rather) is reused and I’ve skipped or jumped to the next story before, this new story pics up where the previous UID’d story left off. (That’s just a guess). Regardless of the reason, I often get so frustrated with the NPR app that I switch to Apple Podcasts, Pandora or NPR One rather than continue using this app. This has literally gone on for YEARS! I wish NPR would get just their s4*t together and make and app as good as their news coverage is. Right now, the app is well below expectations.Show lessMecworks
Not loving the new update :(
I love the 5 minute news brief at the top of every hour, I listen to multiple podcasts and sometimes stream the news live…this has been a very handy app, while living at home and abroad. However, after the newest upgrade there doesn’t seem to be a way to delete episodes from my podcast lists - I don’t listen to every single one & don’t want them clogging up my phone. There are other annoying changes, but this is the most frustrating. Please add a delete button. Thanks for everything else - I use the app daily!Show lessheixbayfie
You’ve got work to do, but it’s still the better app.
I’ve been using the NPR App for years. I listen to morning edition during the week, I listen to weekend edition at least one day if not both days on the weekend, and use it to listen to other articles on occasion as they peak my interest. It has been a great way to get my news with less of the crap that I see on the news stations. It is far from a perfect app, but it seems that someone is intentionally making it worse and trying to drive listeners to the NPR One app which I have no desire to use because you cannot set a playlist or even simply find Morning Edition in order to listen to the whole thing.I’ve never had an NPR station. I have always listen through the apps and now it’s becoming harder to do so.Show lessJasAries
Where has its mojo gone?
This app no longer wants to know the latest news — on any topic!!
Please help me get my daily fix of US news again!geetees2
local newscast often cut short
local newscast seems limited to 2:01 and is often cut off mid stream. pls extend cutoffzephyr707
Gone from buggy to unusable
If you have an iPhone I would recommend you not even bother trying to use this (cr)app.
I’ve been using this app for several years to listen to local and national public radio stations, as well as read quick headlines. It has always been fairly buggy, dropping streams or just not connecting. It had seemed to be improving until this last week or so, and I appreciated the stability. It is has become my primary way to consume NPR and local radio station content. Now it is so broken it is not worth using, and I’m wondering if I really need to continue contributing to NPR as a supporter, if they are going to waste funds on worthless apps.
Now my closest local station, OPB, never works. When I play it, I get the (annoying) bumper ad but then nothing—just “dead air”. My next most local station, KUOW, does work, but drops every few minutes, usually for a few seconds and then repeating the (ever annoying) bumper ad—leading me to think the connection was broken and reconnected. It often just stops for no reason. I can click the Play button on my iPhone’s lock screen or my Apple Watch, which usually does nothing, then I have to unlock phone, go to the app and press play or try restarting app.
These issues occur all the time now, and with multiple locations—different Wi-Fi networks and using cellular data. So it is not just my network.Show lessmbc66
Got rid of sound icons, why??
It used to be when you look through the home feed, stories that have audio would have a little sound icon next to it as opposed to written-only articles. This made it easy for me to go through the list and choose stories to add to a playlist I can listen to while doing chores. Now you have to tap on each individual article one by one and go into to it to find out whether or not it had audio. Why would they make it less user friendly??Show lessJ ay em jay
