Like all sources of News, it has its god and bad but then again that’s just what makes news what it is.......I do prefer fact oriented news which saves the writers opinion for the OPINION PAGES and I firmly believe that it is a Editor’s Duty to enforce such a policy, however today’s Media Outlets are more interested in getting a story out rather than fact checking. This condition runs rampart in the US and continues to cause great to grief. In general, folks want factual news and not ACOSTA TYPE BIAS.......whether it be directed at the Left or the Right.
The issues: 1) If I open a story and then go back to the main screen it doesn’t remember my place and puts me back at the top so I have to scroll down again to where I was in the news feed. This is quite annoying. 2) When scrolling through a news story if I move the page over a picture it always opens up. Even though I am not tapping on it to open the picture. This is quite frustrating as then I have to tap the back button to get back to the story. 3) The news stories do not load when the app is loaded. Only when you tap on a story. This is only good if you have a fast internet connection. The best way is that the app can be downloading the stories when the app opens so that it is immediately available when it is tapped on. Otherwise in poor internet areas it is slow and unusable. 4) this is an editorial feedback: the videos are always so short. They barely get the story across and leave you feeling like you don’t get the whole picture. It would be better to have longer versions available as well so we can actually learn about the subject and be informed.
This app focuses mostly on the distressing news throughout the world. It repeats it ad nauseum. There is so much news out there, it would be good for this app to broaden its horizons. It gives a bit of news from the most "noisy" places (repeatedly), but fails miserably in wider coverage. If it's not bad news, this app doesn't cover it. Except of course for the little Royals. Now that's cute. The main problem that I have with it is that if you want to read one of the stories and you happen to be way down in the column on the story, when you finish reading it and go back to the column it puts you all the way back up to the top of the column instead of where you were. That is extremely frustrating have to go all the way back down to the bottom of the column where you were!!!
Save yourself the hassle of downloading this app. I was hopeful that the recent update would fix the live stream problems, but nope. I get about 15 minutes of broadcast and then the app pauses the stream and then ultimately crashes or hangs there expecting you to unpause it every few minutes until it finally crashes. Strangely I have had the same crashing issue of World Service on other apps too, so it is not specific to this app, but more specific to their stream, which is now no longer worth trying to listen to due to how broken it is. I know that the world wants broken up news reports instead of a proper stream though.....oh wait. I have been having this issue for over six months and no amount of bug reports has seen improvements made. Others in the reviews report the same thing and the developers clearly aren’t capable of fixing it or don’t care.
I’ve really gone off this app lately. The content is still “OK” although is steadily being eroded with “soft news” stories taking the headlines from “hard news”. I suspect activists in the newsroom... Also the app itself has got a bit more annoying to use. As with other apps, many elements are far too big. There is far too much scrolling involved. I wish there was a compressed view or at least an option to turn off or make the photos smaller. The “menu” is now in exactly the spot where you’d be inclined to press a “home” button resulting in many unintended trips to settings. It’s also literally the word “menu” instead of the 3 bar “hamburger” icon that’s now an accepted standard. ...and the topmost news story is now butted right up against the red header bar with no border. Apart from it looking inconsistent from the other stories, it leads you to think that part of what your looking at is scrolled out of view, so inclines a user to pull down on it... Like I say, still has good content, but it’s becoming more “annoying” to use...
I don’t usually write reviews, but I’ve had this app for about a year and all of a sudden the app now lags and bugs out every time I open it. I cannot press into videos anymore, the advertisements always block an article when I’m trying to view it, and it takes me about 30 swipes upward to get down the page. Though the news is “REAL NEWS,” some of the people writing these articles have some pretty awful spelling errors... and that’s bad-let’s be honest. I hope one of the developers or admins will see this and make the app better as it once was!
It’s nice to have a news source that has a broader perspective. I can get a variety of articles on US news, as well as a wide range of world news that’s unavailable elsewhere. Some reviewers complained that the news is “left,” but they don’t get that the rest of the world sees the current administration for what it is! However... as others have mentioned, after reading most articles, the app doesn’t return you to where you left the main page; instead it takes you back to the top, and you have to scroll back down to find your place. Annoying!
Best source for to keep up with US news and news from around the world. American news sources are SO inordinately focused on domestic news and Trump-idiocy news as to be boring and repetitive. Thank you. Would normally give 5 stars, but for the frequent app crashes that have become the norm over the last few months. Multiple crashes during one viewing session of about 30-45 minutes. Suggestion: When a new version fails to work properly, go back to a previous version that DOES work. Introduce newer versions only when they’ve been properly vetted.
App has recently become glitchy when scrolling please fix! Otherwise great!!!
I have ben using this app for years and its my go to for news. Unfortunately about a month or two ago, it has become somewhat glitchy when scrolling, maybe because so many people are using it now? I wish they would do an update to fix that, I can usually get it to settle down if I close out the app and re-open it. But, as far as content goes, this will continue to be my preferred method for news.
While I love looking over the articles, the app has not been improved since its inception. It’s very annoying to scroll through the long list of available articles, find one to read, then when finished reading and going back to the list, the app takes you back to the beginning and forces you to scroll again through everything that has already been scrolled through and read. I wish the app would take you back to where you were on the list. There must be an algorithm for that, easily inserted into the app program.
Not sure if it’s settings within my device, that I see no way of changing, but CC doesn’t show when videos are played in full screen. Wouldn’t be a huge problem except video automatically switches to full screen and won’t play any other way. Playback pauses if I click out if full screen. Clicking play pushes it back into full screen again. Terribly annoying bug. Other than that I still love BNC news. It’s my go-to source!
Tons of other reviews have touched on the pros and cons of this app, so I’ll skip right to my peeve. When I’m in an article and I swipe left to right, I want to go back to the list of articles (headlines), not the previous article in the list! I didn’t tap that article because I didn’t want to read it. I don’t want to have to tap the tiny little back arrow in the top left corner. I WANT TO SWIPE. This is a stupid design. Going article to article right to left, fine. But get me out of article hell left to right.
It seems like a change has resulted in any video within the app not being playable. This isn’t a geographic location issue as copying the link to story and opening it in Safari will result in that very same video being viewable. ETA. After a response from the app developer they indeed seem to have fixed this now. I have amended my rating to reflect this but have left the original issue posted for transparency purposes. Good job and thanks for the fix!
Finally I can claw free from the suffocating American news bubble! This is an app which readers can set to screen out the garbage which clutters so many other news feeds. There is a “My News” section where the reader can choose the topics they want. No more football! No more American partisan bickering! No more hype pushing one or another insane social agenda! No more climate hysteria! Just news from all over the world.
The app itself is fine, but the stories are mostly negative angles on events or just plain negative events. For example, vandalism, deadly accidents, murders, hate crimes, etc. Politics comes in for it too where there are no positive stories on what the various leaders or governments around the world are doing, only negative or neutral ones. Unless you have a bulletproof psyche, the written content will get you down. Best to stick to the one-minute news video and just get the headlines. No wonder young people don’t bother with the news because it’s so depressing if you only read it from this app.
I’d give it 5 stars because it’s the best news app I know of. But something has gone badly wrong very recently. It won’t scroll smoothly anymore. Slow and jerky and sometimes just stalls in the middle of reading an article. If I force quit and reopen, it’s fine at first—till I have to scroll again. Then it gets jerky again. Please fix!
Some of the best journalism available however the ad designs are the worst I’ve seen. They frequently upset the layout of news stories and when playing before a video prevent the actual news video from playing. Also please show the ‘content not available in your country’ message BEFORE the 30 second unskippable video ad. I’d happily pay for an ad free version to avoid this kind of nonsense as it really detracts from an otherwise great news service.
When scrolling through articles, they will stack on top of each other occasionally and make it nearly impossible to click an article. Even worse are the advertisements. Previously they just slowed down the app to almost unusable rates. Now videos will automatically open without me clicking them as soon as they are scrolled into view, which I’m sure is against some rules somewhere. I even checked my app options and I have videos set to NOT auto open and to NOT auto play. You all really need to figure out your advertising problems in the app.
I have limited vision. I love your news service. The updated App really in NOT an improvement. Highlighted text to speech is un believably fast. Wile it's not on other apps. It locks up regularly. It's not as easy to use as the odd app. I don't like it! Why can't I just watch all the videos ? I also have trouble with the first page which is to be important news but it is very hard to us text to speech. Why do you refer to President Trump as. Trump. I don’t think it is proper educate. And shows a lack of respect. Not very British. James Gage
When you read an article then go back to the home page, sometimes the app will go back to where you were on the home page. Other times when you read, and go back to the home page, it will scroll back to the very top; it’s very frustrating when you were reading an article near the bottom of the home page, and you have to scroll all the way to the bottom again to read the next article, and find where you left off on the home page.
Great reporting. This is my goto source, but I have some qualms. The biggest is the annoying tendency of the app to refresh to the top of the page whenever it wants as I’m scrolling through and reading various stories. By the time I get to the end I’ve had to find my place again several times. 2nd issue is that sometimes I come across articles that are a couple sentences long with no real plot or story. No video or links either. Just strange and somewhat frustrating when I start to read it because it sounds like an interesting topic.
I like the news stories and articles, but lately the ads just completely ruin the experience. The ads cover the articles that you’re reading and are very difficult, if not impossible to clear, leaving you with no choice but to close the app. This is very frustrating and I now question whether or not to just delete the app as it’s just too annoying to deal with. Video playback is very poor as well. Don’t bother with this app until they address these issues that i and many other users have been experiencing of late.
I gave it awhile to try and get used to the new ui but it’s just worse. I mostly have just used my news and the tabs are terrible. I got so much information quickly by seeing very small pictures and headlines grouped by custom topic. Now I have to do so much more scrolling and swiping. Often my screen is consumed ENTIRELY BY 2 STORY PREVIEWS while scrolling through the latest news. I don’t need preview pictures that large! Lastly the ads always seem to render after the content has loaded and there is no placeholder for the unloaded ad, creating an obnoxious shift in content once the ad loads and takes up pixel space. Please do something
I love the international coverage but the US coverage is very one sided. Recent example: The Trump administration have repeatable said his withdraw of troops is not a “Mission Accomplished” situation and the fight against ISIS has entered a new era. While I don’t like the decision, you keep saying he said they he said the fight is over. He said the caliphate ie the “country” of ISIS is defeated. His point is, and you know this is that they are going to be like Al Ciada, and the Taliban, still dangerous, but still there but a shadow of themselves, but you keep saying/implying Trump said it’s all over. You are misrepresenting, on purpose what he Said!
I love the app, great way to browse news but please just let me pay to get rid of the pop-up video ads. If you just scroll past one it automatically pops up and starts playing and if the app is open even in the background it automatically starts playing audio if I hook my phone up to my car or Bluetooth and I have to force quit to get it to stop playing. This is so incredibly invasive and there are no preferences to turn it off. 5 stars once you let me buy an ad-free version.
It’s an easy way to take in a different perspective. I like the stories that are longer and more involved and mostly about individuals going through trials or tribulations. I do wish that there was more substance because most of the articles are very short. Maybe provide links for further reading? I do appreciate how news stories are linked to similar stories. I also appreciate the mix of content (videos, news, in-depth stories, radio, etc.).
I learned to live with this app and appreciate the good things while ignoring those I didn't care for. BUT now you have added a stridently loud ad that unexpectedly bursts into noise as I scroll down an article. No way to stop it except exiting app. This one may prove to be something I literally cannot live with. PLEASE remove this intrusive ad. Bring back the old app. This one is pedestrian -- in trying to look like everyone else, you have lost what made you unique: order. Why do I need another news app that looks like all the rest?
I have used the app for years, and it’s part of my daily routine. BUT recently, there not only have been more ads (like the FedEx ones) which I am OK with, but almost daily, and usually at night, while my partner is asleep, annoying loud videos suddenly start, which I haven’t found a way to stop quickly, except by shutting down the app altogether. Please eliminate this feature. It’s the best way to annoy this particular happy and long time user.
App is becoming increasingly halting and jumpy to scroll, to the point where controlling position is quite difficult and frustrating. An increasing number of stories aren’t actually ready to view when chosen, resulting in the dreaded “Loading …” status. There is no way to tell prior to choosing to read the article whether it’s one of them. I would gladly avoid them, were there a badge to warn of this or an option to omit them from the list. The “starting at the top of the list” problem when returning from a story greatly magnifies the frustration.
I started listening to the Beeb when I was working in Singapore for 3 years during the 80’s. It was the best programme available. Add to that the fine grammar, a relaxing tempo, interesting content, and a feel of veracity. That all combined to make an enjoyable, dependable provider of news and other genuinely interesting stories. It has remained so for over 30 years. Definitely my favorite. From Nevada across the pond.
Though the application has settings for controlling the news feed shown within the app, I cannot find a way to control which topics are allowed to generate breaking news notifications. For example, I don’t care about the goings on of the royal family, those topics are not enabled on my news feed. However, that does not stop the app from sending me countless notifications on the subject that I have absolutely no interest in.
I assume this app takes articles written for the English market and edits them for the American market which is fine. However, in the process of doing so there seem to be some glaring errors that could be easily amended. I fail to believe this would be allowed under direct Beeb governance. Proof reading seems to have been thrown out the window along with spell check. Simple things that are actually quite important in an app like this. Anyway, content is good and somewhat impartial.
Love getting the news from around the world. And the format is by far the best as far as news apps go! But I do occasionally wonder if what I’m reading about other countries are as leftist-slanted as the reports on Trump are. They don’t give him a break! As horrible as they make him sound, when he’s really been quite impressive, I wonder if the rest of the world is also happier than they’re sometime made out to be here. I guess take it all with a grain of salt and realize that people want drama and bad news. So news outlets deliver.
Great news source, of course, but the app needs some work. The most annoying thing currently is the Google ads constantly covering the content. I’d say it’s about 30% of the time I can’t finish an article because an ad is covering it- this just happened in the last few weeks, so maybe it was part of a different fix. I also wish the swipe function was a bit more reliable- sometimes it skips stories on the headline page because they aren’t the same format, which is annoying, because I was intending to read it, but now I have to go back, scroll down, and tap through. I also wish they’d put transcripts up for their video stories- as much as I’d like the time to watch a video, reading is faster and more convenient most of the time.
I get that many apps have adds. I accept those for not paying for said apps. What I don’t like is that the space for the ads isn’t relatively fixed in the page. I find a story I want to read and by the time my thumb gets there I’ve selected the wrong story or an ad because the page loads slow. Maybe you can put a placeholder for the ad then let it render so it doesn’t mess up the placement of the remainder of the content?
Several years ago, I submitted a bug report about ads covering content in the app with detailed steps to replicate. I never got a response, and the bug still persists years later. This is in addition to many other bugs and frustrating behavior with the design of this app. Don’t get me started on the video player. I don’t even bother with videos in-app. Ugh… please find a better mobile app framework and re-build this app from the ground up! The editorial side is great, but it’s packaged with the most awful UI/UX!
The coverage of the pandemic as it pertains to the U.K. government has been biased and has totally lacked any objectivity. Gloom and doom, negative, negative, drives sane people up the wall! I am really surprised that you are not understanding the public’s mood who themselves are helping each other during this crisis in any way they can. It’s a pandemic! It’s unprecedented! Have there been mistakes? Of course. Have there been successes? Of course but all you write and report about is the negative side of the house.........WHY?? Are you really so angry the Tories won the last election???
The app is a bit of a mess. It frequently gets unstable and scrolling becomes intolerably jumpy. Restarting the app helps for a little while. It also has a number of odd quirks: It has a habit of sending you to the top of a given list of stories when navigating back to the list from a given story, which is frustrating when you are trying to work through a list but don't want to read everything. It also has the occasional habit of sending you to random list/stories when you tap on a story.
As an American reader, I increasingly appreciate the BBC’s content and counterpoint to US news sources. The app itself is well designed and easy to use. Just one problem: an increasing focus on video content. I simple don’t have time to sit through videos, and video content rarely if ever is presented with a transcript, or accompanied by a written counterpart. As a result, the app is increasingly less useful as more and more content shifts to video. A preferences filter to limit video content would make this a 5-star app.
Lovely tiny font, it's got. Which cannot be changed within the App itself. Nope, you gotta go to System Settings on your device and do it there. Which means of course that EVERYTHING will then present in large font which is not what I want to do AT ALL. And those intrusive ads that suddenly appear right in the middle of paragraphs as you're reading or scrolling, OMG, how annoying is that. Which is why when I want to catch the beeb nowadays, I typically use Safari instead - what with its zoom options, and ad-blockers, why even bother with the irksome app!
I don’t really mind the change in the interface, but whenever I try to navigate every 5 seconds or so, it keeps on opening full screen ads to the point it’s unusable. It has so much ads that I two full screen ads taking over my screen on top of one another. Ad videos are auto playing in full screen video player and unskippable full screen ads also pop out on opening articles. Reading news now feels like playing a children’s mobile game drenched with ads. I cannot recommend this to anyone if this doesn’t get fixed.
Very much like iPad app presentation - ability to quickly find wide scope if news. It is one of two go-to's for news. It sure would br refreshing to report the news what anyone is doing right in leadership. Pessimism & sarcasm are arduous and a turn-off to want to go to site for the articles within. Your talented hard work would be so greatly best received if a reader was not left feeling more down visiting.
This could be a great news application, but there are a few issues that get really frustrating. Performance seems to drop to the point where scrolling becomes jerky and unresponsive. The other main issue is the advertising. I appreciate the need for advertising revenue and I am more than happy for there to ha adverts with in the content, however when the adverts obscure content because they haven’t given the appropriate spacing, it feels like there was a lack of testing done for the international version of the app.
The app prioritizes loading ads before anything else, even the articles and any images or videos therein. They often load on top of content which obscures what you’re trying to see. The majority of these ads don’t even give an option to hide the ad anymore, and so many have been completely disgusting closeups of teeth, spaghetti that looks like it went bad a week ago, and worse. What a dramatic fall from what was once a useful app which is now almost completely unusable
The app us admittedly better than ever, (from 1star to 3) but that is still, I think, quite far from perfect. Every time I scroll through a list of articles the app reverts to the top of the list. Is it doing this because it's refreshing it connection or it's data? I do not know, but the result is an extremely frustrating experience. I was so frustrated on several occasions after 5 or 6 try's to get to an article I nearly punched the phone as if that would make the app stop torturing me! Thats how ridiculous this bug is. The prominent adds persist and now on a random basis pop ups entirely block the article you selected to read. Still a bit far from 'fit for purpose'. And now it’s so jumpy it’s mostly impossible to use. WHY CAN’T YOU PEOPLE GET THIS RIGHT?
...I begin to scroll through a news article. Like very first second the whole app crashes. On iPad Pro with fast internet connection. Very buggy and loaded with ads. Also before it would consistently crash every time, after you have read an article and want to go back to the main page, you end up on the top rather than where you were. Very annoying to miss the place where you were when going through the various news articles.
It was good before, a month or so ago I realized a lot of stuttering when trying to scroll to the point where the whole app would freeze. I just uninstalled and reinstalled because I just couldn’t scroll, sometimes it would open and freeze immediately. Used to be great but idk what happened now. I’m using my iPhone X so I don’t think it’s due to outdated hardware and this is the only app that does this. Giving 2 stars for now because I literally can’t use it anymore with the freezes.
The news source is excellent and some of the most well written and topical stories you can find but the app itself leaves quite a bit to be desired. The ads they auto stream to you will actually pause your currently playing audio and won’t restart it once you scroll past. This happens for each story you open and even when on the same story you scroll back up to the top past the ad again. Not great if you’re listening to music or podcasts
Why the freak would you get this corrupted media source in where it not only tracks you, but provides false information, on a variety of factors. Not only that but this app uses phrases stated 5-10 years ago to favor a politician to either look bad or credible, and this app has changed TREMENDOUSLY throughout the years, I honestly don’t even trust 80% of what this app brings to the table and unless you are interested in something other than crime, politics, or headlines, don’t get this app as it will literally brainwash you and come to false conclusions.
This has to be one of the worst news app I have ever downloaded. I have deleted it four times in the last two years. Reloaded it after updates and still have the same issues with it. Aside from the app I dont know who puts up the stories and who is in charge of proofing it. But whoever isn’t doing there job or they just do not know how to spell. Either way a news station this big having these issues is very embarrassing if you ask me. I would give half a star if it was an option!!!! Don’t waste your time if you want clear good news
The BBC News app brings you the latest, breaking news from our trusted global network of journalists. Personalise your news offering with My News Add topics wherever you see the + icon for a quick route straight to the stories you care about. Stories from topics you add will appear in your personalised My News feed. Here you can order stories by topic or time to stay on top of the news of the day. Topics can be added, removed or re-ordered using the Edit function. Find content fast The app can suggest topics based on stories you’ve recently viewed and what’s in the news now. And you can quickly find topics that interest you using the Search tab. Choose from the familiar list of BBC News indexes such as Business, Technology, Entertainment and Health, or search for your own subjects of interest, whether they’re people, places, things or themes. More of the news you care about We offer a full selection of stories from the newsroom, and many ways to read the best journalism from BBC correspondents, including: - Popular - keep on top of the most read stories and most watched videos from across the BBC - Video - One-minute World News summary and the latest video stories - Live - BBC World Service Radio. Expertise and insight from our journalists available 24-hours a day and ready to listen to in the background as you browse Other features: - Push notifications for important news stories - Video over cellular and wifi - Improved offline experience. Download the latest stories when you have a signal and then read them at your leisure - Viewing modes. On iPhone see more stories per index by choosing ‘Compact layout’ from the Settings screen - Settings to allow the app to automatically update in the background - Share stories to your social networks, or email/SMS to a friend - Support for dynamic text. Articles in the app will respect the font size in your device settings so you can increase or decrease the story text size as suits your preference - Related stories, related topics. Go deeper into a storyline with suggestions for further reading and viewing and a range of topics related to each story If you choose to receive push notifications, a unique identifier relating to your device will be stored by Airship on behalf of the BBC to provide you with the service. You can choose to unsubscribe from push notifications from BBC News in your device’s ‘Notifications’ screen. No other personal data relating to you (such as a username or email address) is processed. The BBC will keep your information secure and not share it with anyone else in accordance with the BBC’s Privacy and Cookies Policy. To read BBC’s Privacy Policy go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/privacy If you install this app you accept the BBC Terms of Use at http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms