DW User Reviews

Customer Experience

Positive experience42.3% of reviews
Neutral14.2% of reviews
Negative experience43.5% of reviews

~ Based on 239 written reviews from the US App Store.

What users say

Is DW Safe?

DW - Breaking World News appears mostly safe based on user ratings. AppsHunter Safety Score for DW is 74/100.

This assessment is based on 287 user ratings, with an App Store average of 3.7/5.

Safety Analysis

65.9% of ratings point to a safe experience
7.3% of ratings suggest some concerns
26.8% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 287 App Store ratings for DW.

Is DW Legit?

DW - Breaking World News appears to be a legitimate app. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for DW is 85/100.

Based on 85 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Like many news apps: does not look at settings

What can I say, it displays the news. But, if say you’re older and need a larger font size which you’ve set in your devices settings … well it doesn’t do anything with that setting.

It, like many Web sites will allow you to zoom in and out. The problem with that is while the text gets bigger/smaller, the flow of the text does not change to conform to your devices width. The end result is for larger text is you are constantly scrolling the page left and right. From a usability point-of-view this is really bad.
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Response from developer

Please send us an email to info@dw.com with all technical details: which device you are using and which version you have installed. Our technicians will take care of the problem. Thank you.

🚫 CRITICAL BUG: "Top Stories in 90 Seconds" Does Not Play 🚫

The "Top Stories in 90 Seconds" video module on the English feed is completely broken globally. Attempting to play the asset throws a native Apple AVKit prohibited/slashed-circle icon (🚫).

Core Issue and Visual Indicator
Symptom: Initiating video playback fails immediately. The player UI displays a solid red slashed-circle prohibited icon 🚫.

Technical Meaning:  Apple's native media layer on tvOS and iOS (AVKit / AVFoundation) recognizes the server-side streaming path container, but rejects it because the underlying target asset is physically missing, corrupted, or returning a malformed master playlist (.m3u8).

Scope and Infrastructure Tested
Location: United States and multiple global VPN endpoints

Target Feed: English Language Edition ("Top Stories in 90 Seconds").
Cross-Platform Failure: Reproducible simultaneously on the latest versions of iOS 18 (iPhone) and tvOS (Apple TV).
Network Isolation: Tested across standard US residential ISPs, cellular data networks, and multiple global VPN endpoints.
Local Variables Eliminated: Full device reboots, application offloading, and complete app deletions/reinstalls fail to resolve the error.

Engineering Takeaway
Because the issue persists across entirely isolated networks, distinct hardware architectures, and global routing endpoints, this is NOT a local client cache issue. The automated publishing pipeline or CDN encoding script for the English "Top Stories in 90 Seconds" asset is broken at the source. Please escalate this directly to the mobile development / backend video streaming engineering team.
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Response from developer

Please send us an email to info@dw.com with all technical details: which device you are using and which version you have installed. Our technicians will take care of the problem. Thank you.

“Can’t load content”

I like to read DW every day, just to get a different view (i.e. not U.K. or U.S.) on world events. But increasingly often I get a blank page and a message that the “content can’t be loaded”. Why?

Response from developer

Please send us an email to info@dw.com with all technical details: which device you are using and which version you have installed. Our technicians will take care of the problem. Thank you.

Avoid

Doesn’t actually work don’t waste your money

Response from developer

Thank you for your message. If deleting and reinstalling the app does not help the problem, please write to info@dw.com so that we can further assist you.

getting better

still some issues/awkward design but over the months i’ve had it it’s been consistently improving

Israeli propaganda

Now an Israeli propaganda platform and used only to amplify government policy, not real journalism.

Response from developer

As an international broadcaster, it is our mission to provide objective, balanced, and fact-based journalism. If you have a fact-based reason for a complaint, you may submit an official objection to info@dw.com, including the title of the relevant report, the specific passages you wish to challenge, and any corresponding counter-evidence.

DW

Was ist los mit dem App von DW? Ich habe es immer sehr gern gehabt und möchte es behalten und es funktionierte sehr gut. Aber auf einmal gibt es Störungen, wenn ich eines der Videos sehen möchte. Es ist dauernd unterbrochen und ich habe eine schwarze Fläche und kein Video. Ich habe es gelöscht und neu aufgeladen, aber die Unterbrechungen kommen wieder. Und es dreht sich im Kreis im Kreis und im Kreis zum Wiederaufkaden und nichts kommt dabei heraus.
Was macht ihr bloß mit dem ansonsten richtig gutem App? Bitte repariert das bald ganz fix und sehr schnell. Ihr seid meine Nachrichten und Informationsquelle für Themen die mich wirklich interessieren. Ich will auch alle Videos sehen, die ihr im App habt. Denn das DW in den USA habt ihr uns ja weggenommen. Liebe DW, bitte behebt im App, was fehlerhaft ist. Gutes Neues Jahr 2026 für euch in Berlin wünsche ich euch.
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Sudden reloads / breaks reading

It’s virtually impossible to read a longer story because the app reloads itself in the middle of the reading and takes me back to the front page. I like the content and interface but this issue makes it barely usable

Response from developer

If deleting and reinstalling the app does not help the problem, please send a message to info@dw.com so that we can further assist you. Thank you!

Не работает

Не работает

Response from developer

Thank you for your comment. If you are in Russia, please take into consideration that the government blocks our content, so it is necessary to use some censorship bypass measure such as VPN.

German language app now useless

I really enjoy the DW German language class (Nicos Weg) but (a) I am logged out every time and (b) if I attempt a course, I get an error message “status feedback” something went wrong please try again later. Not very motivating and very frustrating. Please could you fix

Response from developer

Thank you for your message. Please write to info@dw.com so that we can further assist you.

buggy

Tapping a notification should go directly to the article, not the front page or anywhere else. It’s not that hard.

Response from developer

Thank you for your message. In this case we suggest deleting and reinstalling the app. If it does not help the problem, please send a message to info@dw.com so that we can further assist you.

App jumps around constantly

While i respect DW a lot as a news source, the app has a serious problem. It keeps returning to the top of the homepage, whether you’ve scrolled down on the page, or even gone to an article. It just keeps resetting every few seconds to the top of the home page… makes it impossible to read anything.

Response from developer

Thank you for your message and interest in DW. If deleting and reinstalling the app does not help the problem, please send an e-mail to info@dw.com so that we can further assist you.

Notifications

Notifications don’t actually open the story. Major fail.

News alert links never works

Great news organisation but poorly designed app. When I get a news alert and click it the link NEVER works.

Response from developer

Thank you for your message and interest in DW. If deleting and reinstalling the app does not help the problem, please send an e-mail to info@dw.com so that we can further assist you.

Nervig

Wenn die App nicht geöffnet ist und man auf eine Überschrift im Widget tippt, wird nicht direkt zum Artikel geladen, sondern in eine Endlosschleife. Wenn die App allerdings schon mal auf ist auf dem Handy, dann kann man völlig problemlos zum gewünschten Artikel springen. Sobald das behoben ist, gerne fünf Sterne.
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Response from developer

Vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht. Sollte eine Neuinstallation der App nicht helfen, wenden Sie sich gerne mit der Problemstellung und technischen Daten zu Gerät, IOS-Version und App-Version an info@dw.com

Not great

News often doesn’t update. Breaking news links often don’t work. Considering uninstalling. The era of German design excellence is clearly over.

notificações não abrem

o aplicativo nunca abre as noticiais quando clica na notificação…

Response from developer

agredecemos pela mensagem e interesse na DW. se deletar e reinstalar o aplicativo não ajudar neste caso, por favor, envie um e-mail a info@dw.com para que possamos auxiliá-lo melhor.

Live-TV

Why the Live-TV no longer plays in German? It was a good way to practice my German listening comprehension, and now it’s gone!

Response from developer

Agradecemos pela mensagem e interesse na DW! Os conteúdos televisivos em alemão foram interrompidos no início de 2024. Entretanto, você pode encontrar as ofertas de vídeo (em alemão) on demand: https://www.dw.com/de/alle-sendungen/programs-de E, claro, os conteúdos da DW Brasil estão disponíveis aqui: https://www.youtube.com/@DWBrasil/

Good reporting but: Needs dark mode. Often has typos. Terrible images quality.

App really needs a dark mode. And also more spell checkers. Often times some words - and even organizations - are misspelled. Good otherwise. Also, for some reason the images they upload are often very low quality.

I am updating my review to one star because in addition to the above complaints, DW always asks if I want to enable cookies even after I have checked the box. Every single time I open the app. This is annoying. Also, it repeatedly asks me if I want to show 3rd party info even though I always click “yes, always show 3rd party info”. They really need someone to clean up their app!! Please!!
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Dark mode

Every time I open this app it blinds me with the white. Please add a dark mode option. I’ve resorted to only using the app for notifications and using the website in reader mode for everything else.