KATU News Mobile

KATU has an easy to use app without a lot of ads, and is good about reporting local news that OregonLive fails to cover. Unfortunately KATU seems to be slowly and surely being biased towards the right. They are increasing their coverage of national politics with stories that are only on Fox News and other right leaning news organizations. I will continue to use the KATU news app, but with caution, because it’s pretty obvious where they stand and what their agenda is. Too bad they can’t just report the news without trying to brainwash us.

I’m disappointed in the updated main Newsfeed page. Rather than headlines, it shows a large photo with its headline, so I have to scroll down and down and down through all photos/headlines. While the Local selection, for example, is easy to use and I’m able to select what story I want to read, I don’t see a way to select that format for the main Newsfeed page. I’d like to see headlines for local/nation/world available on the main page rather than large photos.

The update made this app so using it will not go past the white logo page. Unless you use wi-fi connection . At this point you might as well use your tv to watch the news or video. The whole point to have this app on your mobile devices is to have on the go and your Wi-Fi doesn’t follow you everywhere you go.

You would hope a large ABC affiliate would know basic spelling at least… I’ve seen too many typos on this app to care anymore. It always seems like the app is managed by an unsupervised intern who wishes they worked for Vice or Buzzfeed.

The most recent update last week broke the app. It no longer loads past the white logo screen.

Crashes immediately when trying to open & is, therefore, useless!

This is one of the most useless TVcontent apps that I’ve ever encountered.

[Amendment to my previous review below: All of my complaints have been dealt with and the latest version is pretty good. Landscape mode on the iPad finally works. The weather report is fixed and the app is stable and well organized. I have raised my rating to four stars. It would have been five but I cannot bring myself to reward KATU with the that high rating for finally doing what should have been done in the first place.] This "update" is an unfinished Alpha version that somehow escaped into the wild. Landscape mode does not work (this is an iPad version not an iPhone version so this is unforgivable). The current temperature consistently displays a "?" In the weather section and there is not current forecast text. The app is simply not finished, so I would wait for a new version if possible. Unfortunately, I went with blind (misplaced) trust. Don't make my mistake.

New app format and layout is nicer than old one for sure, but verbose weather forecast is in Spanish, which makes it not very user friendly.

What used to be a great app and my personal favorite now sadly isn't even worth the download as it's the worst app I'd say now out of all the Portland news stations. No landscape when it sort of worked. I deleted it then thought I give it another try but It just keeps telling me to touch here, touch the heart, swipe right to add content and doesn't do anything. I've tried multiple times it's just not worth it. I'm going back to other Portland news apps which are much better designed and easier to get around in. Whoever designed this did not make it user friendly at all .

The new version of the app is a step backwards in both speed and ease of use. There are more graphics which translates to less information on the screen and more scrolling. It also lags a lot more than the older version and frequently freezes for a few seconds There are also more ads injected in between the stories which while expected is still annoying. The app is a necessary evil if one wishes to read the katu version of the news.

I haven't experienced any bugs, but I don't see what was wrong with the previous app. However, I still enjoy KATU and have no problems with this new one. It would be nice if it had fast switching capabilities (i.e. not reloading the app each time it's opened).

Quite some time ago, the Katu app worked ok and provided info in a reasonable format. Unfortunately a number of months ago the format was changed and this app has become painful to use. The way the information is presented, the options to scroll and sort through, all of it has been really frustrating to the point that I have now deleted the app and loaded a competitors app that seems much more user friendly.

This is one of the best news apps I have ever used. Video links in the stories (great quality video too!), easy to navigate etc etc. This will be my primary source of news. Beats out Oregonlive app, Kptv and all the other ones

Text appears vertical instead of normally horizontal. Makes reading impossible. I guess this is a bug that needs to be fixed ASAP if you do not want to be flooded with negative feedback. Luckily I had not deleted my old Katu news app, so for now I will keep using that one until this new app is fixed. I can not believe that with a bug like that it gets through Apple's review.

Great improvements on this app! Was about to give up due to issues and bugs, but with the latest fix the app is working flawlessly. Nice interface and graphics, easy to navigate.

Where's restaurant report card? Having this great information on hand would be extremely helpful when trying to decide on a place to eat.

Fine job, easy navigation, fast. Especially nice to have one finger map panning, and all the stories are well written with journalistic integrity. A true pleasure to use your new app!

After latest update I accidentally touched something while trying to use first time & I can no longer see any news feeds. I've use this app for several years to read the news, at least I used to. Hate latest update, might as well delete as it no longer allows me to view news feed.

This app is junk. There is a lot of inconsistency in the content shown in the main feed. Articles with different publication dates are mixed up, old mixed with new. The videos don't work properly, and the layout hasn't been updated for iPhone 6 and up (that came out in 2014). The quality of content is going down the crapper too.

I have the same issue as other reviewers. Starting this app almost immediately takes you to the App Store to download some game being advertised on the news app. Nothing you do gets you out of the loop and you can't even read any of the news articles. I will be going elsewhere for my news. Bad job KATU. Great way to lose your customer base

I don't use the app much lately. The format isn't very good on mobile and lately I try to read an article but as I scroll down only ads are there. Chunks where maybe an article would be are just black rectangles with no text in them.

Previously sucked, now it really works. Glad it was improved.

Good app in a similar format to the Katu website. Looking for something better? Download pulse news. This however does what it set out to do. Deliver Katu news to your idevice.

App does good enough for my fix of local news on the iPad, but I would love to see an actual link to the story when it tells me to see the site.

Just what I need for my hourly/daily news! I have watched KATU for years. I love the chemistry of both the morning and evening groups!

The biggest defect is that it often shows you tutorial screens with no obvious way to get out of them and into the news articles. Please fix this ASAP. For some reason they refuse to fix this, a real pity, I really hate them. Fix your lousy app. I see that you Aholes have not fixed the app yet, do you test it on the ipad?

This app has not worked for months on my Ipad3. Have tried to load the updates but nothing is working, with the exception of the instruction pages, which can only be swiped to read. It used to work quite well. My husband has the New IPad and his KATU APP stopped working after he loaded your update time before last.

First off, I want to say thank you for updating the app and fixing the interface. I really love the app this time Thank you

After the most recent update I can’t open the weather forecast, it just crashes the app.

But this last update removed my ability to go back from the first news story I selected, so I'm stuck. Usually easy to use and great layout.

This app was a great app for local and world news until a few weeks ago when they simply stopped updating the content in almost all of the categories. Now I will have to get my news elsewhere.

When I open the app there is a “commercial advertisement” that takes over whatever I am trying to link to and just keeps looping and no matter how many times I click it to make it disappear it reactivates and starts looping again. I can’t get to any stories.

This is an update to a review posted more than a year ago... Why, oh why do companies rely on outsiders who do not test what they create, and then promote it as having “big fixes?” This app now acts like an iPhone app only displaying on my iPad Air in portrait mode, and runs noticeably slower. Repost the previous version under anew rev number so we can “update” to the previous working version. It is also to be noted that rather than showing local news items as it did several years ago, the KATU new app now is mostly generic national news. USELESS!

Works well for me, not crashing. I like the fact that they have a local Camas news section along with other locales.

After update it works wonderful ty for fixing it

Alerts are nice but clicking on them takes you to their main page where it is difficult if not impossible in some cases to find the associated article. KGW app is better.

This app used to somewhat workable. Now as you scroll, the articles jump all around as they try and stick ads in between every 5-6 articles. Just so frustrating, scrolling back and forth to find the article you just saw and wanted to read.

This app was almost as bad as watching the news online. If my phone moved the slightest, the entire story starts again. And with all the commercials, you would think they could afford to fix these issues.

Simple, clean, user friendly, straight to the point. Dear Fisher, don't even think about updating this with the horrid update on KOMO APP!!!!

I'm giving it one star because zero stars is not a choice. After having the Katu app for years, I'm deleting it because this version is that bad. Slow to load, too many graphics, difficult to navigate. They ruined a good thing. :(

Ever since the new version app has been crashing every time I open up a story. I liked old version better. It was user friendly and easy to get to other news stories

Adds keep opening constantly when trying to read a news article. Can't even get past first article as adds overtake app. In the years I have loved KATU, their IT team shows little to no regard to fixing this piece of garbage app. Why do I keep using it?

Sinclair is Trump TV. If that’s what your into, then this is the place for you. BTW... You don’t have to worry about “Fake News” on Sinclair Stations, as they pride themselves on being the only local news stations that can navigate you through the fake news waters.

I had dumped the previous version because it didn't work. Thought maybe they'd fixed it. Seems not as I can't get out of the tutorial screen to see actual stories. I'll try again later.

I really liked this app before the change. Weather halfway comes up- the weather part is harder to navigate. Too much news feed with no organization to it. Not worth space on my phone.

Automatically redirects to App Store for games and other paid apps when you click on a news story. This app will show you the day's headlines, but you can't ready any of the stories. Try the KGW app for your Portland news.

As soon as you open the app you get stuck in a continue loop of being routed to the App Store nonstop for various apps. As soon as you click to go back to the KATU app it routes you back to the App Store for a different app. Useless!! 😡

Did you use interns or a co-worker's high school kid to develop the update to this app? You are supposed to be a news organization - do some research on usability before dumping this garbage on your audience. You are better than this, and we deserve better from you.

Where did support for landscape mode go? I just installed another update and still no landscape support. Never use it at all now. Impossible to use with constant moving of the articles around ads.