Beta version was good until they messed it up again.
The Statesman seems to have a long track record of actually starting out pretty good with the app, but then they feel they need to introduce “updates” which are anything but and so far have always been a retrograde step. The latest beta version of the e-edition is a prime example. It started out pretty good I have to say. It was easy to use and provided a great full screen view of the pages as you could hide the headers and navigation bar. Now of course, true to their history, they have messed it up again. The latest “update” now includes a banner ad along the bottom of the screen. This takes up nearly 20% of the screen real estate. So despite the fact that the paper is already full of ads, and every expanded view of a story has multiple ads throughout they still feel the need to have a banner ad along the bottom of the screen. When will they learn that without subscribers there would be no job and no paper and best way to keep both is not to really annoy the people that make both possible. Way to go Statesman.
Whoever put this app and layout together needs to use the KISS principle in a redo. This app is way too cute and complex for its own good. First, it is very non intuitive. Layout is confusing, side bar is a hinderance combined with the top little calendar/pull down menu and it is not easy to go from page to page. Next, Why bother with the EXTRA section after the ads et al which is an expanded redundancy of the first pages. Maybe a better way would be to have all the local news in the front page and initial section and put the national and other news in the EXTRA section. Second, clarity of text is bad in several areas. Too often pages or sections show up blurred and never clear themselves up. I don’t experience this on any other app so have to presume it is based in this app. Lastly, current news that is not 2 to 3 days old would be an asset. I keep having to look at Google news for current local and national news stories than reading this paper online or otherwise. You should think about how to keep the Digital edition active with current stories and save the old stuff for the print option. Otherwise, this paper and app are quickly becoming non relevant in today’s news world. In the competitive media world you better get current quick or resort to becoming an archive facility for old news!!!
Something about the most recent version of this app (9.2 at the time of writing) has made it impossible to read articles. About two weeks ago when it was released, I started having issues. I’m on IPhone 14, and everytime I click into an article, I have only a few seconds before it kicks me back to the app’s main news page. It may or may not have something to do when the final elements of the page loads in (aka ads), but it’s basically made the app unusable. Which is a shame because I’m paying for a digital subscription and I find their website utterly unfriendly. I will update this review if they can release a patch or minor version that gets rid of this issue, because otherwise, the app worked rather well.
UPDATE: it’s worse than ever. Every story I choose this morning immediately clicks back to the home page - making the app unusable and it’s making me question my continued subscription. Zero stars. ORIGINAL: Quite often the app clicks back to the Home Screen while trying to read a story, making it difficult to finish reading a story. I just tried reading a top news story and it immediately clicked back to the home page. It did this five times. I sent an email to customer support a few weeks ago and received a less than satisfying response. I’ve tried reloading the app, I’ve tried holding the phone still, I’ve avoided touching the screen as much as possible, and nothing helps. It doesn’t do it all the time, but enough to make it frustrating. Please, someone hear my complaint and fix it!
I want to like this app, and the design itself is great. However, I want to scream every time I open it--nearly every headline is written like cheap clickbait; as if a 21st century reader can't be bothered to actually be interested in a story if the words "find out why" aren't in the headline. I'm *on the app* to find out why. It's insulting and obnoxious and, frankly, I want to actually know what the story is about before I bother clicking over. Moreover, those kinds of headlines are generally used on stories online that are phishing for clicks to steal data...is that the way the Statesman really wants to portray itself? I'm not impressed. I'm finding another way to read local news.
Our paper route delivery guy quit and so we went paperless, using the app and website. The Website works better on a desktop. For a tablet using the app, it is a bit unstable, the e-version paper that looks the same as the printed copy constantly switches views and formats, requiring lots of going back to find your place. However, there is more available news using the app and website than the printed paper and the news is somewhat fresher as the paper’s deadline is early in the evening due to the printers being in Twin Falls. Consequently, much of the printed news is over a day old when you get it.
Our printed subscription does not arrive until late morning so we rely on the E edition to start our day and also when we travel. For many months before the end of last October it was very easy to retrieve the e edition, then an updated electronic subscription was launch along with an increase in price for the Publication. It was absolutely frustrating trying to read Blurry text and live advertisements would hijack the screen. We have sent dozen emails to customer service department and have not received not one response. Called technical support but they will not resolve the issue. It appears the Idaho Statesman just want the money and do not care about their customers.
I was a print subscriber for years till it got to expensive. I switched to the e edition plus paper on Sundays. The e edition came via an email with a link that opened the paper that looked like a printed version. It was easy to read then you started changing the way it would appear (I read it on an IPad). Expand then shrink, expand then shrink to be able to read it. Now, I can’t get to the e edition from the email. The app edition is confusing, repeats stories, some weeks and months old and hard to find the articles I’m interested in (and I couldn’t find the funnies). I hope the new editor reads the comments and can fix the mess you have right now
The Statesman e-edition was recently modified. The changes made the paper more difficult to read. The new version loads much more slowly. A reader must wait what seems like a long time for each individual page to load. Each page will open as a view of the entire page. This is a very small image, but the pinch-to-zoom feature can be used to zoom in to a readable size. Unfortunately one cannot drag the view all of the way from top to bottom or side to side. Dragging will move only part of the way across the page. To read a different part of a page one has to zoom out to a full page, and then pinch-to-zoom centered on a different point. Zooming out to a full page must be done with precision. There is very little tolerance. If not quite zoomed out far enough, one cannot zoom in centered on a different point. Just a little bit too far though, and the app collapses.
Navigating the app to find news is nearly impossible. Unless it is one of the four stories on the page, you can’t select a subsection like local or sports. The app will temporarily go to the subsection but immediately go back to the home page. If you choose one of the notifications from your phone, all of the remaining news notifications disappear. Being unable to navigate to the other stories from your notifications is impossible, even if you search for the headline.
I have subscribed to the Idaho Statesman eEdition for two years; I was pleased with it until they changed the app for it recently. It freezes up often, especially whenever I try to expand the page. The font is often fuzzy when it first appears and can sometimes take as long as a minute or two to become clear. There are days when I have to close the app and reopen it many times just to get the paper read. I really hope this app can be fixed or I may cancel my subscription.
The app is often unusable. I open articles and they automatically close back to the Home tab, sometimes immediately and sometimes after several seconds. I reopen the article and hope that I’ll be able to read some more, but often the article auto closes before I can even scroll down the where I left off. Also, ad placement is often intrusive, often appear in crazy places like between a section header and the first sentence of the section.
The old e-edition worked great. Then a couple of months ago, they replaced it with a mess. Instead of running through the app like it used to, now it runs through Safari, with 1/3 of the page taken up by the browser at the top, and pop-up ads on the bottom. The only way I can stand to read the paper now, is to download the pdf, where I can’t navigate between sections, instead have to scroll through dozens of irrelevant pages. I have complained over and over again, practically begged for a return of the old app, but to no avail.
I originally posted a review that said my app would never open unless I deleted and reinstalled it on a daily basis, but it looks like I just needed to power down my iPad every once in awhile. My fault. Not the app’s. Overall, very happy with my digital subscription!
On iPad or iPhone this app is still not user friendly. I find it frustrating to read the daily news in paper form on line. I have to tell you that the digital program used by the Star News in McCall, Idaho is far superior for user friendliness. Trying to support my local paper even tho my local paper doesn’t seem to really care about Idaho as you are too interested in McClatchy dogma.
Bug with the app - no links from Facebook Messenger sharing
Hello. There is a minor bug with the current (version 7.6.0) of the iPhone app. There are no working links to articles if the user shares an article using the Facebook Messenger option in the share sheet. Considering that this is the most common way that a lot of people use to share links, you are likely losing traffic because of this.
The updated app is not user friendly in any way. What is the point of publishing recipes or articles that cannot be highlighted and printed? And flipping up for pages is not the normal way we read. Also, a huge peeve is publishing Albertsons ads every single day. That is obnoxious that we have to flip through all those pages every single day. Once we see the ad on one day, that is quite enough. Whoever thought they were “updating” with this app change is certainly not customer aware.
App consumes a large amount of storage and does not seem to release it when clear cache is selected. In fact it was using 28 GB of storage when I happened to look. The only solution is to periodically delete the app. Printing is erratic. Sometimes I get a blank page, sometimes a partial page, sometimes nothing. Organization of the online edition is horrible. Sometimes sections are completely missing, sometimes just out of place.
The Statesman is our main daily news source for local news. We have been print subscribers for many decades. We have found the increased print subscription costs unreasonably high. We recently started receiving the print edition of Idaho Press Tribune, which is a fraction of the cost. When our current Statesman subscription expires we may discontinue or opt for digital only.
This new version of the app is worse than previous iterations. Cons and inconveniences: -the same news stories are repeated in multiple sections as you scroll down the landing page of the app -you have to scroll down and hunt for different sections in order to get to them. (Why not list all the sections at the top like before? That worked fine)
The Idaho Statesman app works fine in my iPad Pro and used to work on my iPhone 10 until one day when I interrupted a feed fetching operation. Since then I only see an “error fetching feeds” message. Deleting and reinstalling the app or even upgrading to an iPhone 13 did not resolve the problem. I can read the eEdition and receive alerts, but can’t read the articles presented in the alerts. This app is very frustrating.
My grandmother has gotten the statesman for over 40 years delivered every morning until this year now she gets 3 papers in one day but no paper mon or Tuesday then gets mon Tuesday and Wednesday all on Wednesday. She paid over 600 dollars for a 6 month subscription! it’s a paper not an elite gym membership! Who reads the news every three days. They have become super shady since new owners (surprise surprise based out of California) the locust migration is almost complete!
Does not deserve even one star. Imagine reading any article and then the app after a random number of seconds switches back to the main page! It has been doing that for weeks. Probably the worst app I have ever had on my phone. I used to feel sorry for the Statesman before because they obviously will not survive in Idaho. This app makes it easy to see them go under.
I had no issues with previous updates; however, this last one has me not using the app much…may consider a different media for Idaho news. No dark mode, am getting double notifications, and “settings” is very limiting.
I have enjoyed getting my local news through the app during the past two years of living in Idaho; however, now that the institution has made the decision limiting the number of articles that can be read each month I have deleted the app. I will go ahead and get my news from Boise State Public Radio, and let the Statesman go the way of the rest of print news.
Every time I have tried to watch a video whether it be a sports video or a local news video, I have to watch commercials at least 4 ads and sometimes I never get to watch the video. I finally get frustrated and leave. I was trying this because we gave up our paper version(never had time to read it) but I think I’ll go back.
I have followed the Statesman for a long time. When they started charging I discounted because the price was too high. Paying the subscription price, I felt was out of line. An adjusted rate would be more appropriate or even a Senior rate would be more appropriate for Seniors on a fixed income. Thank you
This must have been designed by the competition. We were print subscribers but due to delivery ( lack of) issues we changed to e edition. The latest version is having us contemplate going with a different newspaper subscription. Too many ads, each page slow to load; please return to prior version.
It seems that all this app is good for is to catch upon football. It’s not user friendly. I cancelled my subscription via phone but found they are still withdrawing $ from my account. Ughhhhh. I’d get the paper version but I’m tired of having to move my vehicle or look somewhere in my flower bed to find it.
The change to the e-edition app was not the best choice made by the powers that be. It is clumsy and not user friendly. I realize that changes are part of progress however; I feel this choice took steps backward rather than forward. Hope to see better changes soon. I loved reading the newspaper on my iPad but have opted out more days than not.
Some articles open in ALL CAPs. Difficult to read. Article close button is at top left should be on top right (iPad). Overall operation is better, doesn’t freeze like previous version.
After subscribing for years, the paper edition became too expensive to justify. We relied on the e-edition for our more in depth news. Now, the app relegates the e-edition to a tiny window sandwiched by massive ads. It would be OK if it could be expanded to full screen or switched with the main body of the app which seems mainly devoted to videos and glossy stories with little news content.
It’s a step down from using the browser. Just two: are no search, and the way it jumps to the top of the home when you toggle between apps. Unfortunately, the Statesman does a bad job on their RSS feed and most stories are from outside the area.
I’m having a hell of a time on my iPad trying to view what I want. Now the sections come up on The right in a small column and I cannot enlarge the column. Make it so we can set our reader preference and search on the sections. This is so frustrating I live in Challis therefore am paperless. It also keeps asking me to sign in over and over 😡
The Statesman app for the iPad used to be one of my favorites. The app today is terrible.... unnecessary sign-ins, ads poorly placed, screen freezes and far too little content to justify the exorbitant price compared to other digital news sources. How can such a fine app become so unfriendly and provide so little information. PFF
Change is fine, but it’s supposed to make improvements. This latest upgrade sure doesn’t. Doesn’t load, bottom half of page is covered with an ad. Shouldn’t have to be an IT expert to read the paper.
I lived in Boise for 22 years before moving to Orlando, Florida for work. It is wonderful keeping up with the town and state I love. Thanks Statesman. You do a great job.
Yes, an update was needed to make it more user friendly. However, this new version took a step backwards. Would like an option to use the previous app even though it was a bit backward at times.
I understand the financial difficulties the print news industry is undergoing, but the recent decision to limit the number of articles that can be read in a month, within an app, makes it useless. I’ll have to get my news online from the Idaho Press.
When I was a kid back in the day everyone had the statesman and it was a great form of news for resource for the state of Idaho. now they are so socialist and have even condemned people who hold religious beliefs. They no longer produce good news and I am very surprised they are still around in a conservative state.
App does not work. When selecting a content section and story from the content master list the app automatically exits the story and returns to the content selection page thus not allowing the reader to finish reading the story. Statesman please fix the problem!
If you use private relay the app doesn’t function. Your choice is to let them track you and sell your data or delete the app and use the website. Bad business, do better.
Please go back. This app has poor navigation. Also, help desk could use an upgrade. The nice person I spoke with didn’t know how to pronounce “cache” and couldn’t figure out how to get today’s edition to come up. Btw, it was 8:00am and my app was still showing yesterday’s edition.
As usually happens when something that’s not broken gets fixed the result is unsatisfactory. More obnoxious ads you can’t get rid of and no way to print something are just two problems. If everything stays “new” I won’t be renewing my subscription. Gordon Fisher
I liked the previous digital duplicate of the newspaper within the app, and really dislike the new interface. I don’t like getting bounced out to the web to view the digital e-edition. I had the app for a reason. Now, what’s the point?
Difficult to read paper in e-edition since recent update added banner ad near bottom of screen. Very annoying. Please remove and get advertising a different way!
You don’t have a way to search info using keywords or names unless it’s really really hard to find/use. C’mon Twin Falls’ newspaper has a decent search ability but you have none?
Connect to the Idaho Statesman newspaper’s app wherever you are. Receive the latest local and breaking news from Boise and the Treasure Valley in Idaho. The Idaho Statesman reports on the local topics you care about, including weather, traffic, crime, sports and national news. Features of the app include: • Breaking news alerts and real-time updates. • The local news and sports topics you care about from around the Boise area. • Idaho Statesman opinions, editorials and columns you love. • Ability to share stories on Facebook, Twitter or by email. • An app-native eEdition of the printed newspaper, including 60 additional pages in the ExtraExtra section. Read our Privacy policy here: https://www.idahostatesman.com/customer-service/privacy-policy/text-only/ Read our Terms of Service here: https://www.idahostatesman.com/customer-service/terms-of-service/text-only/ For California Residents: To learn more about managing your sharing preferences and Do Not Sell My Info rights visit https://www.idahostatesman.com/customer-service/privacy-policy/text-only/#notice_california
