# The Economist: News & Analysis — user reviews > 2,035 indexed App Store user reviews of The Economist by The Economist, rated 4.90/5 from 182,192 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-economist-news-and-analysis/id1239397626/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-economist-news-and-analysis/id1239397626.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 165,043 · 4★ 13,557 · 3★ 1,904 · 2★ 513 · 1★ 1,175 ## What do users think of The Economist? Overall sentiment: neutral **Pros** - 🚀 Excellent app for accessing Economist content - 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface - 📚 High-quality journalism and in-depth analysis - 🔊 Convenient audio playback option **Cons** - 🐛 Buggy audio playback with frequent issues - 🔍 Lack of search functionality and difficulty navigating past issues - 💰 Expensive subscription cost - 📢 Presence of ads despite paid subscription - 🔄 Inconsistent syncing of read articles across devices **Commonly reported bugs** - App crashes when opening articles - Audio playback frequently stops or fails to load - Inconsistent behavior when rotating device - Login issues and difficulty restoring purchases **Most requested features** - Ability to customize audio playback speed - Option to organize saved articles into folders - Offline access to images and graphics - Apple Watch app for audio playback - Improved search and browsing of past issues ## Newest reviews (18 of 2,035) ### 2/5 — AI narration is bad *2026-08-18, version 4.101.0* The AI narration is irritatingly bad, mispronouncing too many words ### 3/5 — Audio totally ruined *2026-08-15, version 4.100.0* Audio playback has been ruined with the recent update. Before, you could start playback at any article and it would play it and all following articles in sequence. Now it plays one article and stops. If there is a queue, it will instead jump to the next article in the queue. And there is no way to delete the queue. Audio playback is impossible for me to use. ### 2/5 — Basic State Preservation *2026-08-14* I’ve been a loyal, paying subscriber for years. I have no complaint about the journalism but the iPad app has had, for as long as I have subscribed to it, a critical engineering flaw that degrades the daily reading experience: it loses my place constantly. If I click away from the app even briefly to check an email or take a note and return, the app reboots and dumps me straight back to the Home page. My active article, scroll position, and reading progress are completely lost. It appears recent updates have prioritized adding new feeds, audio, and media formats, which to be honest are of limited interest to me, over basic core stability. Feature expansion is an understandable marketing focus but not when basic state preservation is missing. Please ask your engineering team to fix background state preservation in the next software update so subscribers don't have to hunt down their article every time they multitask on iPadOS. Largely drafted on AI but heartfelt. ### 3/5 — Worked fine until recently *2026-08-05, version 4.99.0* I've been using the app for a while and while it has been buggy at times, it mostly worked ok. However as of the last couple of days, it's been crashing every time I try to open it, updating my iOS version did not help. I suspect the latest version is broken, if by chance any Economist app devs read this, please fix your app. ### 3/5 — wtf *2026-07-27, version 4.97.0* почему здесь все платное? я понимаю, что это долгий труд многих людей, который нужно оплачивать, но.. вообще приложение очень красивое!! прям очень. мне, как иностранцу, изучаемого английский, читать его было бы очень интересно, я уверена. но почему за все надо платить(((( хотя бы напишите здесь, что оно платное, чтобы такие же бедолаги не повторяли моих ошибок ### 2/5 — AI Weekly -or- The Contrarian *2026-07-25, version 4.97.0* AI Weekly -or- The Contrarian The Economist should change its name to one of the two above titles. There is so much AI propaganda, it may take up to 50% of the publication. They also seem to consistently take a contrarian approach to anyone that has gained power… not just Trump. The publication no longer feels centrist, seems to lean left in some opinions, right in others, and promotes policies that would be ruinous to the human race long term. It has increasingly felt more like propaganda than proper journalism. Personally, I will no longer pay for propaganda, but I’ll give two stars for the Espresso reporting on daily news, which actually seems to be lifted and adapted from BBC and Reuters. ### 4/5 — Great content but the app needs work *2026-07-21, version 4.96.0* The Economist has excellent written ad audio content, but the app is sorely missing customizability. I have a few select topics I care about, but the app has no good way to focus on those. There is a topics section in the FYP but it is out of the way and difficult to manage. It feels like an app stuck 15 years in the past. ### 1/5 — Liberal editorial bias, no real economic diversity *2026-07-21, version 4.96.0* The Economist markets itself as independent and centrist, but the coverage is consistently left-leaning and heavily weighted toward Keynesian economics. There’s little space for alternative perspectives like Austrian economics, supply-side theory, or genuine classical liberal thought. Most issues present progressive policy solutions as the obvious answer and frame skepticism of government intervention as backward. For a publication that claims to value “free thinking,” it’s remarkably narrow in which economic schools it takes seriously. Austrian economists and their critiques of central banking get dismissed or ignored. Supply-side arguments barely get fair treatment. If you want actual editorial diversity and intellectual rigor from multiple economic perspectives, you won’t find it here. I’d respect The Economist more if it was honest about its ideological leanings instead of pretending to be the rational, centrist voice. Real independence means genuinely engaging with competing ideas, not just Keynesian orthodoxy. ### 2/5 — Hassling about the same settings every time *2026-07-17, version 4.96.0* Every time I open tje iOS app, it again asks to confirm privacy settings, likely because it does not like my settings - resets them to be more permissive settings. Tired of manually intervening every time. ### 1/5 — Werbung in der paid version. What. *2026-07-07* Wie kann es sein dass überall Werbung ist. Obwohl man für das Abo zahlt. Ich versteh es wirklich nicht, das geht garnicht. **Developer response:** Thank you for providing your feedback. The Economist business model blends subscription revenues and advertising sales which are used to fund our editorial team of over 250 journalists around the world and enables us to invest in new and improved ways to distribute our journalism. We have worked hard to ensure that the user experience remains as smooth as possible. Your feedback is valuable, and we will pass this onto the team so we can continue to improve the customer experience. ### 1/5 — Clunk and Hard to use *2026-07-02, version 4.94.0* The app continues to be an abomination, with what should be “basic” features missing. Downloaded issues continue to “spin”; briefly leaving the app results in a long start up load and back to the main page, instead of continuing where left off in the weekly edition. Weekly edition articles have too many links. the previous version of the app was simple, clean, and easy to use. Bring it back! ### 1/5 — Audio gone from most recent app update *2026-07-01, version 4.94.0* Hundreds of articles fed to us about AI yet economist can’t figure out how to update their app without completely breaking it. Great job! ### 1/5 — Awful. Bring back the old app *2026-06-28, version 4.93.0* Will sometimes (but inexplicably not all the time) refuse to play downloaded articles when not connected to the internet. I listen to articles while hiking in areas that don’t have cell reception so this is a deal breaker for me. Was not a problem with the old app. ### 2/5 — Getting spammy *2026-06-23, version 4.92.2* It’s all getting a bit spammy. The full screen inline ads, the popups asking for notification access, the overlays asking me if I want to listen to some podcast. Dunno, maybe that’s just the way of it. Annoys the hell out of me though. ### 1/5 — App logs out constantly *2026-06-20, version 4.92.0* I haven’t been able to use this app at all - it keeps logging me out and freezing when I try to log back in ### 1/5 — Just a waste of life to read misinformation from Economist *2026-06-14, version 4.91.0* I just cancelled my subscription. Enough is enough! ### 1/5 — Fix The Economist Audio *2026-06-10, version 4.91.0* Fix The Economist Audio! ### 1/5 — Couldn’t set up app *2026-06-08, version 4.90.0* I paid for a subscription and could not set up the app. I have many I set up with no problem, but not this one ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Too many adverts: subscription cancelled. *2026-08-23, version 4.101.0* Like so many others have noted, the adverts have become intrusive on the app. Subscription cancelled. ### 1/5 — Latest update has broken the app *2026-08-06, version 4.99.0* Now crashes on starting, even after deleting and reinstalling. ### 1/5 — Biased *2026-08-04, version 4.99.0* I’m a political atheist, and I can’t stand that most media is biased towards one side instead of presenting both sides as part of the same problem. In the case of The Economist, the left-wing bias is blatant. Bring back journalism, please. ### 1/5 — No longer runs on iOS16 *2026-08-02, version 4.57.0* …which is the most recent OS that runs on my device. Why should I have to buy a new iPad to read The Economist? I now have a paid subscription for content I can no longer access. Boo. ### 1/5 — Privacy screen is broken *2026-08-01, version 4.98.0* On both iOS and Android my Economist app stops at the privacy screen. However, when I choose to manage privacy the toggle control does not render [Update] And after I described the issue here, the Economist wanted me repeat the exercise and file a bug report — instead of creating a bug report and letting me just add any required details to it. I pay the Economist, they don’t pay me. ### 1/5 — Economist app is appalling bad *2026-07-30, version 4.56.0* Every time I want to read the Economist on my phone, I am prevented from doing so by the app. Every time it tells me I need to update the app and I press the update now button it puts me onto the update app page, but when I press the open button on that page it returns me to the update now page, and so on ad infinitum. Is it possible to fix this? ### 1/5 — Privacy screen is broken *2026-07-24, version 4.97.0* On both iOS and Android my Economist app stops at the privacy screen. However, when I choose to manage privacy the toggle control does not render ### 1/5 — Economist app is appalling bad *2026-07-24, version 4.56.0* Every time I want to read the Economist on my phone, I am prevented from doing so by your incompetent and disfunctional app. Please fix this so I can actually read the articles without constantly having to surmount the inadequacies of your IT. ### 1/5 — Scam packages *2026-07-24, version 4.97.0* I downloaded the economist to listen to the elon interview. I clicked the video and it asked me to pay $7. I paid then clicked the video. It asked me to pay another $7.60. It’s not a lot of money overall so I paid. Now i am being asked to pay 24.08 to potentially watch the full interview ### 1/5 — One of the worst apps *2026-07-21, version 4.96.0* I’ve given up counting the number of times the app displays “something went wrong…”. It’s probably the worse app I’ve ever used. The economist seems to be complacent or incompetent. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — 자꾸 업데이트 하라고 합니다 *2026-06-30* 아이패드로 보고 있는데 업데이트를 하라고 합니다. 하려고 보면 업데이트 버튼은 안나오고 “열기” 버튼만 보여요.엡스토아에서요. 어떻개 해야하너요? **Developer response:** Thank you for sharing your feedback, and we are sorry for the issue you've experienced. I request you to uninstall and reinstall the app and this should resolve the issue. ### 5/5 — Thank you for adding Audio Timer! *2026-06-22, version 4.92.2* Thank you for adding Audio Timer! ### 5/5 — Great Balanced Reporting *2026-05-19, version 4.88.0* I really appreciate the professional and neutral reporting of this newspaper. The editorial team has never disappointed me in how a range of opinions is presented and in how it manages to balance political views from many viewpoints. ### 5/5 — Addition of CarPlay takes this to the next level *2026-05-02, version 4.85.0* So happy to see CarPlay support added to the app. I love the podcasts, but this will help me get thru more of the articles. Please add playback speed controls. 1x is just too slow for me and there are a lot of articles I’d like to get to each week. ### 5/5 — CarPlay Support Added 🙏 *2026-04-30, version 4.85.0* Great app for economist subscribers and now (4/26) even better with CarPlay support added. Easy to listen to subscriber content while driving and to queue up all your favorite podcasts and articles. ### 5/5 — Great app design, great journalism *2026-04-22, version 4.84.0* Genuinely one of the best apps out there, Well done. ### 5/5 — Much better *2026-03-16, version 4.79.0* The app was terrible for years, but not now, regular updates much improve stability. Presumably you’ve changed developers excellent either way. Please bring apple car play support! FT has it for top stories would be awesome to listen to economist via a carplay app can’t be that much effort. Also please make it easier to create custom audio playlists feels like there are one to many clicks/presses to just quickly select what I want audio playied in a issue. One simple press for in or out and just play in order it comes in issue would be great. Others keep it up. ### 5/5 — Your news *2026-03-07, version 4.75.0* Very informative. An excellent look at the world daily. ### 5/5 — Good news source. *2026-03-02, version 4.75.0* Unbiased news analysis ### 5/5 — Love this pub *2026-03-02, version 4.75.0* I’m a long time subscriber and love The Insider feature as well as the app --- *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 2026-08-27.*