# New Statesman Magazine — user reviews > 88 indexed App Store user reviews of New Statesman Magazine by NS Media Group Limited, rated 4.70/5 from 221 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/new-statesman-magazine/id610498525/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/new-statesman-magazine/id610498525.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 182 · 4★ 23 · 3★ 7 · 2★ 2 · 1★ 7 ## What do users think of New Statesman Magazine? Overall sentiment: mixed **Pros** - 📚 High-quality, intelligent journalism - ✍️ Excellent writing from talented contributors - 🎯 Thoughtful, balanced political analysis - 📖 Wide range of well-researched articles - 💡 Insightful commentary and essays **Cons** - 🔤 Illegible typeface difficult to read - 🔄 App loses place when switching between apps - 🐛 Frequent crashes and freezing - 📱 Poor multitasking handling - ⚙️ Limited font size options (too few choices) - 🔍 Search function hidden and ineffective - 📰 Inconsistent content availability - 🚫 Cannot cancel subscription online - 🔐 Login and authentication issues - ⏱️ Slow loading and unreliable performance - 🎨 Outdated, clunky user interface - 🌙 No dark mode support - 📜 App resets to top of article on reopening - 🔗 External links open in browser instead of app - 📅 Unclear edition dates and version identification **Commonly reported bugs** - App loses reading position when backgrounded or phone locked - Splash screen appears on every app switch causing delays - Scrolling bugs prevent articles from scrolling properly - Login fails with 'unknown root error' message - Text size adjustment not working or stuck on small size - Notifications not working due to login issues - App crashes when phone is locked or in background - Content list stuck showing old articles (January articles displayed for months) - App doesn't hold place in part-read articles - Not all articles appear in 'Latest' list - Incompatibility with new iPad aspect ratios (iPad mini 6) - Top of pages clipped on newer iPhones (iPhone X and later) - Dark mode switch present but non-functional - Permission errors requiring repeated sign-in/sign-out - App requires full refresh with splash screen on every switch - Scrolling misinterpreted as sideways swipe - Magazine tab refresh kicks users out and loses place **Most requested features** - Alternative font options with better readability - More granular text size adjustment (slider with more options) - Dark mode support - Persistent article position/bookmarking when switching apps - Search function on main screen instead of buried in settings - Mark articles as read functionality - Offline podcast downloads - Follow/search by specific authors - Daily news updates in addition to weekly magazine - Full website access through app - iPad gesture support and optimization - Crossword puzzles in app - Better content index with full titles and author names - Ability to purchase individual editions - Email-based subscription cancellation option ## Newest reviews (20 of 88) ### 2/5 — Frustrating *2026-05-25, version 4.0.0* As a long time subscriber I switched from the physical magazine to a digital subscription. However, what really infuriates me about this app is that when reading the digital edition of the magazine the articles often appear in a different, jumbled order to the physical publication and the digital version of the magazine on the NS website. Please, please, please fix this so that reading the latest issue in the app gives the reader the same experience as reading the physical magazine. It shouldn’t be difficult. ### 2/5 — Fantastic publication, terrible app *2026-05-18, version 4.0.0* Did we really need a knock-off version of Wordle before having a an app that has the latest magazine available even remotely close to the date of publication? Digital delivery has been consistently later over the last year. If the developers could work on that it would be much appreciated. In the meantime I’ll just have to hope I don’t miss a change of prime minister whilst struggling with the hard sudoku! ### 3/5 — Fancy for the sake of it *2026-05-13, version 4.0.0* Works as you’d expect any news app to but two things make me hesitate to open it. 1. The logo splash screen every time it opens. Please can I turn it off? Just take me to the content. 2. The font. I know this must be standard but I have good eyesight and reading this font is hard. Changing size is impractical. Can we have options please? ### 3/5 — Good articles ruined by poor reading experience *2026-05-12, version 4.0.0* Please, please let users be able to change the font of your articles. Whatever typeface you have chosen is terrible for reading on an illuminated phone or tablet screen - thin, indistinct strokes. Your app designers should surely be able to offer a font option. Even your text size options are too inflexible - moving from default to the next size up is a ridiculously large change. If all this doesn’t change in an update soon I will not be extending my trial subscription. ### 2/5 — Refreshing is so annoying *2026-05-07, version 4.0.0* The app refreshes and navigates away from any open articles when you switch apps even briefly. Incredibly annoying that I cant respond to a text midway through an article without having to find it again. ### 3/5 — Great content - poor reading experience *2026-04-10, version 4.0.0* I’d like to be able to read this with a larger font. But it is simply a pdf of the paper magazine that can’t have the size increased. ### 2/5 — Could be better *2025-12-28* It’s pretty, but no search function and links to other statesman articles open in a browser ### 3/5 — Good content but hard to enjoy the app *2025-09-28, version 4.0.0* Unlike its competitors, the NS app almost never uses push notifications to let you know when there’s new content to read. As a result, I rarely remember to open the app… that’s on me, too, but I wish there was an option to invite more notifications so I’d make use of my subscription. The font can’t be changed and isn’t the easiest to read on screen. As others have noted, the app doesn’t save your place if you switch apps. The search function also barely, well, functions. So overall, it’s not a great experience, which is a shame because the material itself is usually really good. ### 3/5 — Unreadable typeface *2025-09-05, version 4.0.0* The app is fine and works well. However, the typeface used is awful and really difficult to read! You can make it bigger but then it’s too big. Please pick a typeface that looks good on a small phone screen. It’s not print… ### 2/5 — App needs work *2025-04-18, version 3.9.0* Great journalism, but I find the typeface hard to read and — as others have mentioned — it doesn’t cope with multitasking at all well, so when you switch out of the app for a moment it loses your place. The New Statesman used to have an excellent app but the redesign succeeded it making it a much poorer user experience. ### 2/5 — Great, intelligent magazine, very poor iPhone app *2024-12-21, version 3.7* This app is pretty poor. If you come off the app, even briefly for example to read a message, when you go back in you have to wait whilst it refreshes the whole page - normally back to the top. Why does it need to refresh at all? And if you’re reading the digital magazine (as opposed to the live feed) and leave off for an hour or so, the whole thing refreshes and you’re kicked out of the magazine tab and lose your place entirely. And you have a limited choice of font size - too big or too small. The NS could learn from the Economist on how to make it a good experiences. Really puts me off using it. It’s making me wonder if I’ll renew my subscription. ### 4/5 — Two things that will improve the app enormously *2024-10-12, version 3.7* Hi. Please can you… 1. Offer alternative fonts. The one you have is not great to read on a screen 2. Make the text size more flexible. The slider has only three options. Thanks ### 2/5 — Notifications not working *2024-07-28, version 3.7* Not impressed. Can’t log in therefore notifications of new articles don’t work . When will this be resolved? ### 2/5 — Awfully buggy app *2024-07-10, version 3.7* Imagine a magazine that looses its place every time you set it down for 2 minutes or whose pages sometimes refuse to turn. That's this app. It frequently crashes when the phone is locked or when in the background, meaning you have to find your place again. There are also scrolling bugs which mean you often can't actually scroll down an article. I've had both these issues regularly on my iPhone 15 Plus and 2020 iPad Air. It's not the fault of NS, I subscribe to another magazine which appears to use the same base-app ("pugpig bolt") and it has exactly the same issues despite being on an older version, which goes to show how much investment is happening in QA! Please improve the app quality. ### 2/5 — Glitches *2024-03-31, version 3.6* The app does not work smoothly, it gets stuck quite often, which makes reading very uncomfortable. ### 3/5 — Annoying functionality *2024-01-20, version 3.6* The content is great but a few annoying traits. 1. The App doesn’t hold one’s place on part read articles and so if you are distracted part way through reading an article the app returns to the start of the article when it is reopened. 2. Not all articles appear on the “latest” list as they are issued and so you have to scroll through the magazine to find any items that are not listed. ### 4/5 — No dark mode in 2023!!! *2023-12-18, version 3.6* Wonderful app but please add dark mode ### 2/5 — Good mag, rubbish app *2023-10-30, version 3.6* A fan of NS, but this app lacks basic functions. Dark mode STILL hasn’t been added. You can’t lock your phone and reopen an article without it putting you back to the top, making you lose your place. Links within the app to other NS articles opens the article in A BROWSER, instead of the app. Shoddy stuff. ### 2/5 — Font on this app is awful *2023-10-15, version 3.6* This is a review of the app, not the magazine. Please, please improve the font and/or font size adjustment. The font style is way to inky and I find it hard to read. What’s worse is the font size adjustment. Small is ridiculously tiny, completely unreadable. Medium small is tiring on the eyes. Medium large and large are ridiculously large. You need a size between medium small and medium large, but font size adjustment does not provide it. ### 3/5 — Frustrating *2023-10-02, version 3.6* High quality journalism… when it works! Have enjoyed reading the magazine however after my initial few uses i can no longer log in to the app. I can still access the website with my subscription. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — The app is awful *2026-05-21, version 4.0.0* The app is never updated with the latest magazine you have to literally email them to ask them to update it. Terrible app but good magazine. Just a shame they can’t get the app right. ### 1/5 — Truly Awful App and Customer Service *2025-06-27, version 4.0.0* Had the mag on the app some weeks and could only access a few articles. Other weeks mag never even appears on app. Contact customer services and days later an uninterested intern says hows sorry they are and does absolutely nothing. Won’t be renewing. ### 1/5 — Don’t Take the Trial Membership! *2025-01-15, version 3.7* I took a trial membership of this magazine. Although there were some good articles, there were others that were quite offensive. Unfortunately, if you are abroad, you can’t cancel. The only way to cancel is by phone and they don’t accept calls from Internet based apps like Skype. So if you’re in a country where calls to UK are expensive, it would cost more to cancel rather than keep something you didn’t want. It’s a bit of a scam, really. ### 1/5 — Appalling that a subscription cannot be cancelled online *2024-04-02, version 3.6* Although a subscription can be made online ot can not be cancelled online . The helpdesk requires a UK phone number to be called, but when I did this, in the UK time zone, the number was simply unanswered. Asking subscribers , and overseas subscribers in particular, to call a telephone number is simply not user friendly at all. Nor is there a readily apparent email address shown to which people wishing to cancel can do so by email. One can only assume that these difficulties are deliberate, as the whole topic of cancelling online subscriptions has been well aired in the media, by consumer watchdogs, and by parliaments internationally. One would have thought that a publication such as the NS aspiring to the values of transparency would not embrace the same mechanisms of some other publishers to make it difficult to cancel online. ### 1/5 — Can’t login *2023-10-02, version 3.6* Try logging in and it says “unknown root error” ### 1/5 — Frustrating app that losses position in article *2023-08-17, version 3.6* Hi, overall the app works but rather frustratingly each time I switch apps and back the the NS app, it reloads (NS logos screen…) and losses my place in any article I am reading. Wish they would fix this! ### 1/5 — Attractive but annoying *2023-07-28, version 3.6* I like the content of the magazine but the app is horrid to use. 1. Search function is difficult to find - why is it within my profile, rather than prompted? 2. Content is hard to find - looking for an article out today but not obvious in any of the sections. 3. MOST ANNOYING, especially for a magazine with long-reads - if you are interrupted in your reading (e.g. responding to an email, a phone call or a message) the app then refreshes the article you were reading or defaults back to the landing page - rather than holding your place open. Why?!? ### 1/5 — Text size adjustment no longer works in settings *2023-05-11, version 3.6* The Text size adjustment no longer working in settings. i’ve tried the obvious fixes such as deleting the app and reinstalling. Still no joy. It’s stuck on a very small text size so the magazine is pretty impossible to read on iPad. Very poor experience for a subscriber of many years. ### 1/5 — Needs fixing to make better experience *2023-02-03, version 3.6* It is infuriating to use as a way of reading the magazine. Every time you come out of the app it resets your place to the top of the article or comes out of the magazine entirely. I find more time scrolling to where I was than actually reading. ### 1/5 — Good content. Bad customer services. *2022-12-11, version 3.6* An online service should be easy to subscribe and unsubscribe. I have been trying to unsubscribe for 3 months now and just receive the same message “we are currently experiencing a period of increasing demand”…. For 3 months now. I won’t make the mistake of subscribing to them again. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Dark mode *2026-07-01, version 4.0.0* Please add dark mode for night time reading without glare. Its absence puts me off reading the app late at night. ### 5/5 — Renewed Subscription *2025-06-18, version 4.0.0* My subscription ended and it took several days to renew it - my fault as bad at admin. I’m glad to have re subscribed and to be enjoying the wide range of articles and analysis again. Andrew Marr and Nicholas Lezard are my favourite writers. ### 5/5 — Simply the best *2024-09-16, version 3.7* You are exposed to so much poor news media nowadays that to read anything in the NS is to breathe oxygen in a gas filled mine. Thoughtful critical responsible honest and supportive reading , simply the best . Even a populist might read it ### 5/5 — Subscription failed *2024-07-08* The app removes your subscription immediately even if there is a notice period of 3 months 🙁 ### 5/5 — Making a search *2024-01-18, version 3.6* It would be useful to have the search icon on the main screen of the app, rather than hidden away in the account section. ### 5/5 — New Statesman *2023-04-10, version 3.6* The New Statesman is, in my opinion, probably the best political news sheet in Britain. Articles are well balanced,informative and well written. Some of the best and most literary journalists contribute to this journal. Yesterday’s article on Emily Thornberry by Rachel Wearmouth is a classic example. ### 5/5 — A triumph of style over function *2023-03-25, version 3.6* No quibbles on the content which is as excellent as ever but PLEASE could we have a choice of fonts other than the illegible house style which is available in three sizes - tiny, huge, and large enough for your neighbours over the road to read. Also, if you switch out of the app for a moment, you have to wait for the app to relaunch and it only takes you to the start of the article you were reading, rather than save your place. What a shame that such great analysis and comment is thwarted by such a poor reader experience. ### 5/5 — The ‘New Statesman’ - online and in print *2022-09-01, version 3.6* It radiates intelligence and sanity in an age of stupidity and fanaticism. No matter what the political views of the contributors, they have it in common that they write as if they expect their words to be carefully examined. The standard of writing the NS maintains is extraordinarily high. Every week it re-kindles in me the hope that reason will one day prevail. ### 5/5 — Brilliant, we’ll researched & measured journalism *2022-03-16, version 3.4* I love this magazine because of the pedigree of journalistic talent throughout. Always thoughtful, never too judgemental, a piece of honesty in a pool of fake news. The online version is great, the feeling of the magazine but literally pocket sized. We’ll worth the money ### 5/5 — Great magazine and nice app at last *2021-10-07, version 3.4* Love the new look of the app. The redesign of the magazine and website are very nice too but for me the most urgently needed aesthetic upgrade was the app’s. A very convenient way to access New Statesman content, which is high calibre and the work of charismatic writers. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-26.*