Adequate experience; chronic login issues
While the app hasn’t received any notable updates in years, the general experience, while basic, is adequate: well-designed reading experience, functional search and access to most section content. Areas for improvement: Ads are more prominent and disruptive than competitors and of low quality (with an apparent infinite amount to display as article length increases); the home tab feels stale and outdated (and editor’s picks are often pushed out by an ad); articles saved on web may appear in Saved but not the other way around; no support for dark mode; other media types such as podcasts and newsletters are buried in the section list; no offline content or automatic downloads. The biggest issue is authentication. The app seems incapable of storing login credentials for more than a day, so anytime I open the app to read an article, I have to log in again. This isn’t a complaint about the app and website synchronizing my login, or any nuances of Safari web views — this is a fundamental issue with the app. As such it puts me off from ever seriously using the app. The website is the only viable alternative (apart from print) for subscribers, but with the website focusing on daily content the app is missing a trick to provide a curated and focused content experience.
