# The Great Courses — user reviews > 310 indexed App Store user reviews of The Great Courses by The Great Courses, rated 4.80/5 from 17,175 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-great-courses/id1017813651/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-great-courses/id1017813651.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 14,942 · 4★ 1,521 · 3★ 261 · 2★ 148 · 1★ 303 ## What do users think of The Great Courses? Overall sentiment: mixed **Pros** - 🚀 Fantastic, use it all the time - 👍 Excellent content and Outstanding Educators - 👍 best app you'll ever subscribe to - 👍 Math courses are phenomenal! - 👍 Loving the content in the app! - 👍 Well done in the upgrade! - 👍 Amazing!!! - 👍 A valuable service - 👍 Really worth it - 👍 Knowledge is Entertainment - 👍 Love The Great Courses **Cons** - 🐛 Ok content, weak app - 🐛 Broken - 🐛 Technical problems trying to cast - 🐛 Great content, poor streaming - 🐛 Far fewer courses than before? App VERY buggy - 🐛 The service is 5 stars, the Apple TV app is 1 star - 🐛 Many missing lectures - 🐛 App is bad; Catalog is good - 🐛 Garbage - 🐛 Great Content, Bad App - 🐛 Can't restore apple subscription - 🐛 I have tested software for 30 years and this is really poor quality. - 🐛 App is bad; Catalog is good - 🐛 Garbage - 🐛 Great Content, Bad App - 🐛 Terrible update - 🐛 The app is very buggy. When will you fix it? - 🐛 Buggy app and streaming - 🐛 CAREFUL! No access despite paying for a yearly subscription - 🐛 Absolutely terrible user experience! The frusteration is not worth the cost - 🐛 Good info, unreliable app - 🐛 Love the lectures, hate the app. - 🐛 Terrible app, great content - 🐛 Constantly getting stuck on home screen - 🐛 I have a subscription through apple store but i cant access content **Commonly reported bugs** - Login screen freezes - Incompatible with older devices - Audio goes out of sync with video - App constantly logs users out - Downloading content doesn't work offline - Playback issues when switching between audio and video - Inconsistent behavior when pausing/resuming playback - Poor navigation and course tracking **Most requested features** - Can we get a ton of courses on AI please, it's a mite urgent - Dark mode option - Advanced analytics dashboard - Allow audio-only downloads - Ability to download an entire course in one go - Ability to browse other content while playing a lecture - Note-taking during content and live closed captioning - Ratings and reviews for content ## Newest reviews (17 of 310) ### 2/5 — Fantastic content terrible app *2026-07-14* That is pretty much it. Great courses indeed. I have listened to/watched dozens and loved them. Selection and presentation is biased towards anglosphere, which however is to be expected, so no big complaint. The main issue is the app, which has a myriad of issues, from not opening sometimes to only playing video (not just audio) when not connected to wifi; a fairly odd but persistent issue. Since the app has been bad for years improvement seems unlikely. So if you are curious, love great content and are patient this app is for you. ### 3/5 — Sat unused and subscribed *2026-07-01, version 8.0.9* I tried to sign back in to get some use of the last 14 days left after I cancelled and could not ‘restore’ the purchase in the app. Didn’t play well with passwords app. ### 2/5 — Limited Content if you dont get Plus *2026-05-31, version 8.0.9* I got the Classics membership because there was a promo, then added a bunch of lectures to my watch list. I started several. Then when I log back in nearly every course I had saved is now only in the plus bundle, practically double the price. I will be canceling the membership immediately. There is no way they could have done this intentionally, but it felt very misleading. ### 3/5 — Suggestions for improvements *2026-05-09, version 8.0.7* This is a great app, but I would use it more if it supported picture in picture. Consider adding that functionality! ### 2/5 — Cant use on multiple devices without breaking your login credentials, making app completely unusable *2026-05-07, version 8.0.7* After four years, it LOOKS LIKE they have finally made an app that is stable and functional... WRONG! Turns out if you try to use their service on a different device, like an android tablet or phone, once you login on the android device, it logs you out out of your iPhone app. And then, when you try to log back in on your iPhone, your username and password no longer works! It says email and password not a match. But I absolutely positively was using the correct password and email set. To "fix this" I had to reinstall the app, which deleted 100 GB of my off-line downloads! This kind of thing has happened so many times and I'm tired of having to waste my time re-downloading my off-line downloads. I love the service but the problems with the app is ridiculous. I think it's time to quit and go with a different service. ### 2/5 — Ok content, weak app *2026-04-18, version 8.0.5* You can’t change the subtitle settings at all. It just always starts their horrible subtitles every video. They do not match the words and are all jumbled. Why this is forced on people I don’t know. ### 3/5 — App Just Hangs *2026-03-19, version 8.0.3* Tried to launch the app does not go to the login page. ### 4/5 — Wonderful and frustrating *2026-03-08, version 8.0.2* The content is WONDERFUL and has rececently gone through a major update and remastering (thank you!). Now, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it easy to share a link to courses AND episodes. I have several friends who also have the subscription and it is hard to recommend and link up for watching and chatting on all the wonderful material. This is an emportant part of this subscription. ### 4/5 — Incredible content but the app has issues *2026-02-28, version 8.0.1* I’ve been using the app for about 6 years almost everyday, through all its various incarnations. I’ve noticed the loading times have gotten slower and slower and the app has always been buggy but seems to be having more issues in the past 6 months. Is there a better place to report this kind of app specific stuff ? ### 2/5 — Be prepared to be frustrated *2026-02-16, version 8.0.0* The app is constantly unstable and unreliable. Your downloads disappear, settings are lost, you're forced to upgrade or logged out unexpectedly, etc. For somebody trying to listen while away from WiFi this will be a constant frustration. In addition, the depth and challenge of the material seems dumbed down since the rebranding from The Teaching Company. Still seems like the best choice for real educational material, but also a shame, given what it once was. ### 2/5 — Great Courses, Inadequate App *2026-02-11, version 8.0.0* My wife and I have long been fans of The Great Courses, even during the dark time when it temporarily abandoned its name; this review is for the app, not the content. It is flakey in its basic functionality, even after the supposedly major 8.0 upgrade: • It often forgets the last lecture I played, resuming instead at the beginning of the previous lecture. • It usually loses my place when switching from video to audio. • It stops while playing in video mode when I lock the screen. This is a reasonable interface decision, though inappropriate for my usage in the gym. But it usually fails to resume when I press the Play button, either on the lock screen or on my headphones. I seem to have better luck if I pause the video before locking the screen. ### 2/5 — Great Courses, Inadequate App *2026-02-02, version 7.1.6* My wife and I have long been fans of The Great Courses, even during the dark time when it temporarily abandoned its name; this review is for the app, not the content. It is flakey in its basic functionality: • It often forgets the last lecture I played, resuming instead at the beginning of the previous lecture. • It usually loses my place when switching from video to audio. • It stops while playing in video mode when I lock the screen. This is a reasonable interface decision, though inappropriate for my usage in the gym. But it usually fails to resume when I press the Play button, either on the lock screen or on my headphones. I seem to have better luck if I pause the video before locking the screen. ### 3/5 — Loses my place when switching from video to audio *2026-01-21, version 7.1.6* Loses my place when switching from video to audio ### 2/5 — You would think you are signing into Fort Knox *2026-01-16, version 7.1.6* Every other day have to sign in ### 2/5 — Disappointing *2026-01-12, version 7.1.6* I love the content. I have bought a TON of content over the years. More than I’ve actually watched or listened to. The new Plus app is awfully dedicated to pushing the subscription plan. I don’t want a subscription. And I have no search function to just search my purchased content. Why? Worse, this version of the app has a similar shortcoming to the old app. I download content to watch/listen when I have no internet access. But the app still insists I log in, even to watch downloaded content. I can’t log in if I have no internet access. I can’t log in before I leave, but sometimes it forgets, and I’m out of luck. Very disappointing on both accounts. I’ve been a customer since the days of cassette tapes. I think this app is deeply flawed, at least for a customer like me. Finally, it has no search function for material I have already bought. I have to manually search. Thoughtless. ### 2/5 — Content is great... When the app feels like working. *2026-01-11, version 7.1.6* Who do I talk to about the glitches in this app? It often crashes. My downloads just delete themselves. When I try to download content again, it won’t load at all or is extremely slow. I’m always having to restart the app or download it again. What a pain considering how expensive the subscription is! ### 3/5 — ChromeCase is broken *2026-01-11, version 7.1.6* App is great aside from the issue… ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Cancel *2026-07-19, version 8.0.9* You incomptents logged me out and now I can't log back in even after resetting my password. ### 1/5 — New update sucks *2026-06-21, version 8.0.9* Can’t get to my old purchases. Update is wonky. Will not use - lost a long time customer ### 1/5 — Unfortunate software *2026-06-12, version 8.0.9* Hopefully, this is an isolated incident. However, my personal experience shows otherwise. The courses are world class however the software is remarkably bad. Plan on multiple password resets in order to view your coursework. Each login requires multiple password resets. What a shame. ### 1/5 — New forced app update won’t open! *2026-02-11, version 8.0.0* My yearly subscription through apple isn’t being recognized by the app… plenty of other apps do this seemlessly, without kicking me out AND continue to recognize my subscription. Fix this ASAP! ### 1/5 — Good content but terrible app *2026-02-10, version 8.0.0* Asking for my apple password. Not going to input that. ### 1/5 — Forced app update deleted 90% of my downloads! New downloads basically don't work now. READ... *2026-01-17, version 7.1.6* Today I opened up the app and it forced me to update to the new version. I had about 100 GB of Courses downloaded for off-line listening and watching and it deleted all but 10 GB of it! Trying to download again and downloads are basically not working. One gigabyte takes 3 hours and it's not my Internet! For that matter, the audio and video compression is not storage-efficiently encoded. Need option for lower quality but less storage space required and more efficient AV compression codec used in their files. iPhone 12, and NO I'm not buying a new phone just for your app. My phone works perfectly well for the 50 other apps I use on this phone. Downloads don't seem to even start unless I turn the Wi-Fi off and get the message saying downloads will resume when Wi-Fi is on, then I turn on Wi-Fi and that seems to trigger downloads working at a snail's pace if you turn off screen lock and keep the app in the forefront doing nothing else ### 1/5 — Forced app update deleted 90% of my downloads! And you can't download an entire course in one click *2026-01-09, version 7.1.6* Today I opened up my app and it forced me to update to the new version. I had about 100 GB of Courses downloaded for off-line listening and watching and it deleted all but 10 GB of it! I live in a rural area and do not have access to regular Internet to download all of this again. For that matter, the audio compression is not storage efficient. Need option for lower quality but less storage space required ### 1/5 — Great Courses lousy app *2025-12-22, version 7.1.6* While I’ve enjoyed most of the courses I have watched the app is awful. The continue watching can’t be edited. ### 1/5 — Great App! *2025-12-17, version 7.1.6* App crashing after latest update. Content is GREAT!. Can’t allow app to crash I learn on the go! Thanks Update Above crash seems to have resolved. Thanks Excellent content Pls make it run in the background, it stops playing say if I need to open message app while listening. I use video mode. Also, pls make a bookmark function that takes you to the whole course not only to specific lecture. I keep having to go to my watch list to find a specific course. My watch list is huge! Will happily keep subscribing! Totally worth the money. 5 Stars when above issues are fixed Thanks ### 1/5 — Losing a loyal customer *2025-12-03, version 7.1.5* I have purchased 117 courses over the past 15 years but will not buy another and refuse to be held captive by the subscription model. This app is crapp and I say that as a career software developer. Downloading my purchased content fails far more often than it succeeds and the entire user experience is torture. You have failed in your prime function, which should be to facilitate your customers ability to enjoy your products. You need to outsource the app to competent developers and get this fixed. Just awful. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — version 8 just released *2026-02-20, version 8.0.0* Feb 19: Version 8 recently released, and so far so good! All working as it should. ### 5/5 — Fantastic way to keep learning *2026-02-11, version 8.0.0* There are so many different courses, the professors are fantastic and new courses are consistently being added- such a great way to continue learning! Highly recommend! ### 5/5 — v18 Breaks App Store Purchase *2026-02-11, version 8.0.0* I was forced to update the app to the newest version. When trying to sign in by clicking “Restore Purchase” it throws up a load indicator, the does nothing. ### 5/5 — Best investment I’ve made in quite some time *2025-12-12, version 7.1.6* I really can’t recommend this app enough. Forty years after my first liberal arts college education I’m giving myself a second one with this fantastic resource … and at a fraction of the cost. I’ve got notebooks of notes now on Russian Literature, Physics, the Ottoman Empire, Macroeconomics, and Infectious Diseases, to name just a few. It’s so wonderful to immerse myself in a world of learning at a time in life when I can truly appreciate and value it. I strongly recommend this app!! ### 5/5 — Better than podcasts *2025-11-24, version 7.1.5* I’m so tired of podcasts by people with opinions and no knowledge. This is a rewarding tool to enrich your mind from truly educated people. ### 5/5 — Amazing Content, Bad App *2025-07-07* Fantastic courses and quite worth the money. I highly recommend it. The app is a constant source of pain though. Just as one funny example: recently I can only listen to courses in audio mode when connected to wifi. If I am not using wifi, I have to activate video, draining my mobile data. There are many such curiosities and you must have a lot of patience. There are good mindfulness courses on the app though, so I can now handle it. ### 5/5 — Fantastic, use it all the time. *2025-01-16, version 7.0.6* Been using this for years, as most you tube videos are just not in depth enough, and podcasters often don't know these subjects well. Download for offline, both audio and video lectures. I cast it to larger screen without issue when I feel so inclined. I'd rate it higher if I could. ### 5/5 — Advanced Education at the touch of a button… *2025-01-10, version 7.0.6* This Awesome Resource is my favorite application. I love sitting by the lake and growing my knowledge levels. THANK YOU🏆 ### 5/5 — Review *2024-10-16, version 7.0.5* You guys really did create something. This is great. I’m on the road all the time so this is perfect for me. Thank you for not skimping on details. ### 5/5 — Content is good. *2024-08-20, version 7.0.3* But the app continues to let me know, every minute or so, that it is using cellular data. I don’t care. Just use it. --- *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 2026-09-01.*