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Revert back to the old app
I rarely take time to write app reviews (this might be the first). The new NPR News app is so functionally deficient however that I couldn’t keep quiet. The old app allowed me to read articles even when offline or with low signal, which was critical for my morning subway commute. I also kept a list of favorite stations that I’ve learned to love all around the country in different places I’ve lived. I’ve even been able to easily tune in to these same stations while living in other countries.
The old app was incredibly more functional and useful if not as beautiful as the new app, which considering that none of the articles and photos load while I’m underground in the morning anyway, doesn’t really mean much.
UPDATE: It gets worse the more I use it — there’s no search function! NPR, I’m trying to share your news and I can’t just easily go into the app and do that?! How does that make sense — earned marketing is the gold standard of what you want your listeners to do for you!Show lessSookieCanBiteMe
Roll back please!
Once again NPR has successfully “improved” upon an excellent app by creating an inferior one. The drastic new interface changes are innovative for the sake of being innovative, and only serve to limit or confound the experience of the user. By eliminating the “now playing” queue, NPR has also limited users’ ability interrupt play for other smartphone functions: there is no longer an ability to take a phone call and then return to where you left off. The app reloads to the start page with no bookmark to what program you were listening or how far into it you were. Also problematic is how the app determines your local station - though I have manually selected my local station, I am frequently diverted to another one that is 1000 miles away. All of this would be bearable, at least, if with this new rollout NPR didn’t also take the opportunity to eliminate options it had previously offered. Don’t waste time looking for reruns of Car Talk! It is no longer available here.Show lessSmirka
Dammit! If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!
I used the old one all the time and now it won’t play at all. Leave your fingers off and go “fix” NPR One. It is awful and you can’t hurt it. Screw that one up and no one would notice! Just put the old one back like you found it and go outside and play.
Seriously, it doesn’t play at all now.
UPDATE
I give it 2 stars now because I can now get the national news cast. Still can’t get the on demand to work. I deleted and redownloaded the app and rebooted multiple times. (IPhone SE, running the latest iOS 11.) Hidden Brain, Planet Money, all gone. One time I got Hidden Brain to work by selecting READ instead, and then pressing Listen from inside the transcript. The play arrows on the episode themselves don’t work at all. App needs a lot of work.
UPDATE 2
Finally got the on demand to work, and then find I can only get a few episodes. It says to get NPR One, but I will never do that again. That hogs data and battery and randomly just plays. You never know what is coming next like it is possessed. NPR One is the worst app ever and never want it on my phone again. PLEASE put the podcast library back on NPR News.
There was nothing wrong with the way NPR News was. In fact I stopped updates on an old iPhone just to keep an old version that works well. Just a suggestion: Why not charge monthly for a decent app? It would be worth it if it were reliable and predictable.Show lessMiss Amaretta
Terrible app - again. It’s a downgrade, not an upgrade!
After thinking about it overnight, I want to change from 1 star to 0 stars, with following addition to my review: I relied on the podcast playlist for about 75-80 percent of the NPR content I consume. Now you’ve taken that away...this is 2nd time in less than a year you’ve completely disregarded members (forced NPR one migration was first). Whoever is making these decisions needs to go. As noted, I’m a member; but plan to withhold at least 75-80% of my contribution next year as I’ll be consuming a lot less NPR now that app worthless. You’re obviously wasting money, disregarding supporters and making dumb decisions.
NPR News app was never glitzy but it was a great app; please bring it back. This new version is as bad as the awful NPR One! I used the old NPR News app to select the stories from Morning Edition or ATC that I may have missed or a Fresh Air interview - just select add to playlist...and a minute later have a line up of 6-12 stories I wanted to hear. Now I have no idea how to create a playlist of just the stories I want to hear. It seems with new app, it’s listen to the whole show or nothing. As I said when we were forced onto NPR One last year - please bring back NPR News....this new app is again a step backward! You listened last time and restored NPR News, hopefully you’ll give us a choice again as I don’t see much use in the new app.Show lessNorthwoods pr
Upgrade???
This is the first review I have ever written, but I am motivated to write it because this redesigned app is disgraceful. The old app functioned perfectly for me, yet this new one is so full of bugs, it is completely useless. I am frustrated because again, I will have to find a new way to stream NPR programs. Please, please, please, just get it right once and then stop with the "improvements".Show lessLpwa
When will you bring back playlist?
Please show respect for your listeners and allow them to save stories for later listening and choose what they want to hear. Bring back the best feature. Make it easier to click and save vs useless layers.
Give the stories a longer shelf life - now the only option is to listen in the moment or lose the chance to hear it. I used the playlist several times a day to listen to what I chose when I had time. A big variety of stories and topics. Why make a change to take away that beautiful freedom?
I looked forward to my free time, walks and drives when I could enjoy all the stories I’d saved for later listening. There are days when it’s too busy - but I could save stories and listen the next day. Add back playlist. Listen to all this feedback from multiple avid listeners and bring it back. Respect your listeners’ ability to chose their own stories - the one app also does not respect the listener. Are your app developers actual users if the app? Must not be... do you listen to your listeners??Show lessLatey
Update ruined a great app
It’s true, the NPR news app had it’s probs - you cld only play individual stories, but you cldnt play an entire show. Well, they changed that. But, they also took away the “play” bar, which allowed you to go back over something you might not have heard, or skip over something u don’t care about. Now if u miss something u hve to re-listen to the entire story - or the entire show if you had made that choice (either that or re-listen to the story, but then yr back to listening to individual stories). Basically it takes away some of the flexibility that makes podcasts easier than the radio show - On Demand is nice, admittedly, but considering I’m listening on my phone the ability to go back over stuff i missed was important to me. It used to be a lot more User Friendly too. There also used to be a great many more podcasts available. Now, instead of an easy to read list of dozens & dozens of podcasts, there’s abt a dozen icons instead - idk the logos for NPR shows, so icons take up space while not helping much. There isn’t a Search function neither. I got sold on the update bc of the ability to play the entire show, now I regret it. I might as well just get the NPR 1 app that has all their podcasts.Show lessCassandra Diotima
Forced into using NPR One
Last year after removing programs from the News App and encouraging users to use NPR one, the NPR news app came out with a statement that they received a lot of feedback from users who didn’t want to use NPR One. In response, they had added programs like On Point back to the app.
Now they’ve gone a completely different direction, removing many features from the News App, and making only recent episodes of popular shows like Fresh Air available on the news app. Users can no longer make their own playlists of individual stories from many programs. Users cannot close the app and reopen to pick up where they last left off on a program. It takes many more clicks to get to a program now than it did before.
Serious listeners are now forced to get NPR One, the app I thought NPR had taken negative feedback on and was scaling back. Disappointed to lose the old news app features and functionality.Show lessebdouglass
Version 4.0.2 too user unfriendly, app is now unusable
I used to make a play list and then listen to its content. The new update has removed the play list feature. I don’t have time to browse for a story over and over again. The app has become unusable for me.The laserman
Eviscerated NPR app
Other reviewers have gone into detail on all the useful features that have been removed from this app, so I won’t repeat the entire list. I miss a lot of the old features, but in particular the loss of the playlist has made the new version all but unusable. If I stop listening for awhile the app refreshes and I have to fast forward through every story I’ve already listened to to get back to the one I was on.
From the embedded NPR One promos it seems like the purpose of this now sadly limited app is to drive users to NPR One. If I wanted to use NPR One I already would! I can’t stand NPR One, partly because its filter bubbling algorithm has gotten my interests totally wrong and there’s no way to reset it, but mostly because I can’t listen to the important news I want to hear all the way through before it veers off into unimportant, and even outdated, stories. The older NPR News app gave me what I want, which is now gone with this new app. So much for “improvements”.Show lessbartquinn
