Microsoft Start

I recently downloaded Microsoft Start and I’m thoroughly impressed! This app has significantly enhanced my daily digital experience. Its intuitive design and user-friendly interface make navigation a breeze, allowing me to access news, weather, and more with ease. What sets Microsoft Start apart is its personalized news feed. The AI-driven content curation is spot-on, keeping me updated with news that aligns perfectly with my interests and preferences. Whether it’s technology, sports, or entertainment, I’m always in the loop with relevant and engaging stories. The integration with Microsoft services is another huge plus. It seamlessly connects with my Office 365 and Outlook accounts, making it a central hub for my day-to-day activities. This feature alone has boosted my productivity. The weather updates are accurate and detailed, providing all the information I need to plan my day. The search functionality is also exceptional, delivering fast and relevant results every time. I appreciate the app’s commitment to privacy and data security. It’s reassuring to know that my information is in safe hands. Microsoft Start has exceeded my expectations in every way. It’s a must-have app for anyone looking to streamline their digital life. Highly recommended!

I have been using the Microsoft Start app since it came public. I found it’s one of the only apps that I’ve been able use to get my Bing points. Using a Start app to get Bing points is a little complex and buggy at times. While I like the all in one app for news, shopping and receipt scanning here are a few drawbacks… I getting points takes much more time now. Sometimes you get points on clicks and sometimes nothing. Sometimes you can click through the trending news and click click click and get points, sometimes nothing at all and you have to come back later in the day to finish. In the last few days, I had the app freeze up on both iPad and iPhone. While I could clear history for the day and week without a problem the app crashed when trying to clear the longer dated history, i.e. 4 week history and all history. This was replicated on my iPhone and iPad both and this maybe due to limitations of the RAM or sandbox memory but hopefully this information will help to may the app better in future updates. Thank you Microsoft support teams for all you are doing.

Over a year ago, my biggest complaint was the repetitive Twitter, and Facebook inclusions that were already in the article. Now we get the same strange repetitions within the article, plus we get more links to things that appear to be an article, but it’s just a click bait ad, I can no longer highlight a word and search the definition, and I can no longer select a picture in an article and zoom in. The video articles I am most interested in, get stuck in a constant buffer but not the one I really don’t care about…those ones load just fine. I no longer get local news for my area, so I have to go back to doing a web search for local news, because the app only picks up neighboring city news. The closest city that I can get news for is 20 miles to the city limit but really the city is more like 40 miles away. I have setup the local news and areas of interest, but it just says “Sorry! No news for this area” Back to using google news now, which is only slightly better. Go back a few updates and you will win me back Microsoft.

Is this a news app? A browser? A weather app? A grocery delivery app? Microsoft just couldn’t quite figure out it’s use case. The dramatic navigational and UI inconsistencies seem to echo this confusion. Some pages have a back button, others don’t. Some pages are native slideovers that you dismiss by swiping. Other pages are websites wrapped in native controls whose tab has to be closed. Sometimes you can swipe backwards to go back and sometimes you can’t. There is a user profile settings page and then another settings page nested within it. Searching just brings up the web bing search results instead of a desired news article. The bottom navbar‘s buttons are identically weighted making it unclear which one is the “front page” of the app. Then there are the functional bugs. For example, progressive pages sometimes fail to load when you pull up for more content (games, looking at you). All in all, I find this app confusing and a bit aimless. It’s got the kitchen sink of features but none of them are implemented all that well.

This app tries to to be a catchall for your phone browsing use, but in practice just feels pointless. The apps are just a collection of actual apps you can download, but with less functionality leading to frustration and a trip to the actual dedicated app instead of the one in start. Then there are the news articles. The majority are random clickbait headlines with little substance if any at all. Many of them are clearly written by AI and contain repetitive information that might not even be true. There are also plenty of ads masquerading as articles. If you want to use any of the features in start just download the dedicated app for that and use a different news app for everything else. If gpt 4.0 is important to you then use the edge app, but Microsoft puts up so many walls on it I just use the chat gpt app instead with 3.5. TLDR: There’s no real reason for the Start app to exist. Most of the articles feel like something my grandma would share on Facebook and the apps are worse versions of the ones in the actual App Store.

I grew up in the era of the daily newspaper, where each day’s delivery brought so much more than the news, but comics, coupons, sales, games, and more. Microsoft Start has essentially filled that place in my life. I love having an overview of world, national, state, and local news each morning as well as a good measure of personalized topics of interest to counter some of the heaviness I sometimes read. I’ve also been using Bing Rewards for years, so having this and general shopping features baked in has been really helpful to keep me on track. There’s so much more that I could write, but suffice to say that I am very happy with Microsoft Start and how it has continually evolved to bring ever greater value to my day.

The major redesign that just occurred that added a bunch of unnecessary stuff like a Bing search bar that Microsoft would like us to use made me search out a replacement. My recommendation is to go to the MSN website, navigate to the “News Headlines” page (which is what the old version of this app basically was) click the share button and then select “Add Website to Home Screen”. It turns out that it doesn’t merely add a bookmark icon to your screen that then pops up in Safari. MSN and some other websites (including APnews) when added to the homescreen like this actually become a HTML Web App. It’s still The Safari engine running it but it opens in its own window and has a custom full screen app like interface. It’s not quite as nice to use as the old app but it’s usable and doesn’t include all the nonsense that was added to the new version. Also less ads. The icon looks perfect right it the spot where the app icon was so you don’t even have to rearrange your Home Screen.

Microsoft needs add at least one of these to significantly improve this app. They are: 1) add the date an article published 2) add a counter that shows the number of since the article was published 3) give us a way to hide an article after we have read it. It is entirely too to difficult to determine how long an article has been showing under an interest. I can't always remember if I have read an article. Whatever algorithm Microsoft uses to find articles related to an interest needs work. For example, I have an interest for cold cases. I get very little information on cold cases. My interest is full of covid-19 coverage. I understand the importance of covid-19 information and have an interest for that. Please limit information not related to an interest. Currently, I wonder why I have interests. *** too many sensational article headings. Otherwise know as click bait. It is too difficult to determine a valid article from clickbait. ***

It works like any other search engine. But they have a future that you can’t disable or turn off as a user, it’s the AI search I wish this can be turned off, but it will never be turned off. It’s a feature that they have for the app it’s unable to be disabled. Even they have Microsoft rewards program last year was the best they had so many points that you can earn on Xbox and through the Microsoft edge now they’re lowering their points system either they’re losing money or too many peoples getting too many free gift cards. I don’t know what it is yes take a grain of salt. It is a free rewards program but now every time you earn a point it went from five points to one or two points. no more earning those 10s and 20s or higher points. Everything used to be dead on target, but now that the end of the year is at a end is becoming unstable points or not adding up points in isn’t registering. I’m only in it for the last points I need & uninstalling.

I was initially going to get four stars just because there’s still a lot of obvious improvements but I decided to get five because I really love that they are giving us access to the latest GPT model for free and I can tell that their pushing to make as much available to the public as possible which I think is great. This is stimulating our growth in so many ways because it allows us to use our creativity and brains to explore even if we don’t have the physical or technical skill in the given area, we can still contribute to growth in our literature, and you name it!

I downloaded this because I couldn’t finish an article I was reading in Apple News; the only choice was “continue reading in the app.” Once in the app, the header and footer never go away, significantly decreasing the readable screen area, and distracting me with a search bar on the top, and a collection of buttons on the bottom, none of which I need. Most modern apps hide these things until you change your scrolling direction, and then show them to you momentarily to see if you need them. If you don’t, when you resume reading, they disappear again. I’m not sure what the purpose of sending me to this app is rather than serving me the entire article in the place I’m already reading it, unless it’s for Microsoft to track me. That might serve Microsoft, it doesn’t serve me. The only time I’ll use this app as if I need it to finish an article.

First of all, being forced to use this after reading news on msn all these years is a bit annoying. On top of that, msn says “to continue reading this article open the app” and when you do, it doesn’t actually open the article you wanted to read or even give that as a possibility. You have to cut and paste the msn headline to search for it in start. Additionally, it doesn’t seem to refresh the top news, etc. when I open it - the same exact news is there for days. And, when it does refresh, because it wants to “feed” you, the algorithm starts to give you things that are all the same. If I read a story from a source, I don’t want to have that source become the main one I am offered- assuming I can’t handle opposing viewpoints… Maybe I am doing something wrong. I am not completely tech challenged, but maybe… Anyway, just an annoying app overall….

It’s nearly impossible to comment on any article. When I am already signed in, it FREQUENTLY won’t let me comment and says I have to sign in. I click “sign in” select my name again and it still just says I have to sign in. I’ve even created a second account to switch back and forth to work around that, and that worked for a while, but as of this morning that no longer works. Then the button to post a comment just disappears frequently. On mobile, if your keyboard pops up, it covers the area you are typing into. On top of that, if you do sign in and get past the many glitches, the comments are so censored, it’s practically a useless feature to be able to comment at all. You can’t use the word “you” so people try to find work around a like “ewe” but it will still hide any comment “for review” that has that word. Even if you’re using it in a general sense as I am doing here. If there is even 1 word in all caps, even if that’s the name of a company, it will be hidden “for review”. There’s also a bunch of other rules which are unknown or seem arbitrarily applied by some horribly programmed parameters so most comments submitted are never shown. And mobile never tells you if you have any replies to your comments (I’d like to be able to turn this on or off).

This app has multiple purposes that are all scattered throughout. The main reason reason I got this app was to upload my receipts. So far i have only made a few bucks, i do shop quite a bit and so does the rest of my family but the downside is not getting 1 cent a receipt. There are other offers to get more Cash back but for some reason you have to click the actual offer rather than pressing “scan receipt” so that I could get the bonus, weird. So after 6 receipts uploaded, you have a chance to win $50, I’ve only ever got between 11 and 50 cents and I’ve down I would say a little under 10 times. My overall point is, what are the odds of winning $50, or a little more then 50 cents. Don’t get me wrong a few bucks never hurt nobody but still I’m just curious as to why I feel like this app is useless.

I use a lot of apps for news and information and this is by far the best one stop source that I check all the time. It really covers everything that I wanna know. And I love the fact that it gives you the coins to be able to use in different AI apps and doesn’t cost anything. Microsoft did a really good job on designing this. It’s easy to use. And when you customize it for the information that you want it streamlines when you wake up in the morning to give you the relevant information you need to know to start your day. Thanks guys keep up the great work.

This app is so ridiculous and the customer support is even worse. I had contacted customer support after 10 receipts that were scan for cash back we’re talking about purchases I made being way above $50 and I only receive a penny back. I am now on my 40th+ receipt and the most I have received back has been three. Cents, if you’re only giving me a penny it’s gonna take me 100 receipts to receive a dollar I’m not gonna buy 100 items from dollar tree to receive one dollar back. I get more back on my credit card than this if you guys are not willing to give anything more than three. Cents, even after I hit the six receipt reward mark. Then what’s the point of even having the program you’re tell me, Microsoft doesn’t have money to give back. I’d rather just stick with chrome, then to do with this crap.

This was my top choice for a news app not that long ago. I relied on it all through 2020, which, you know, was kind of a newsy year. But a few months back they updated the app to include things like user comments on articles, and social media reaction “features” that allow you to 👍 or ❤️ articles. So now each article, let’s say reporting on something tragic, will have hearts and emoticons and a toxic comments section below it, things that don’t belong in a news app, and frankly, don’t look good next to an article about death or disease or war. And all the standard internet comment section junk has reared its head: obvious trolls, even more obvious bad actors, arguments over nothing, and constant “Biden libtard” this and “Trump nazi” that between commenters that have absolutely *no* idea what’s going on around them. Use a different news app. There are a bunch. There were features only this one had, and it *was* the best once. But we never needed Facebook style features in the app, and a quick review of recent history should have let Microsoft know adding these kinds of features does not improve the user experience, but creates a hostile environment rife with abuse and garbage.

Microsoft News is fantastic for news. But the app never save settings about news preferences and even when you set them again, the categorization of articles is often poor. For example, I cannot find any possible way to permanently disable news about sports, entertainment and especially royals. When I finally do disable these (until the next time the app starts), the app saves that I’m logged in, but ignore my preferences. An because of poor categorization, things like sports, entertainment and royals ends up jammed under trending or possibly Asia or Africa. The result is, at least one in 3 articles I’m presented are tabloid rubbish. I can’t imagine that MS would need more than one person on duty at a time to properly sort and filter articles.

I love this app. Well designed with reactions and comments. I think they could take this even farther with tags that are like reactions, but more informative. They could use tags to select content better. The articles are good and a mix, seems to have much less bias than other news apps. Also, the app has good performance. I'm curious what they do with this next. I feel that there's somethings missing still with the design to make it optimal. But it's the best news app that I've used so far and I experiment with a lot of news apps.

First let me say I am a huge fan of Microsoft’s products and although I deleted this app I continue to use many of their products and services. I was excited to try the start app when I first discovered it. But that excitement did not last long. The first thing I noticed was how every news headline or story that was pushed to me was very left leaning. And some leaned so far they read more like Soviet style propaganda rather than news. My second complaint is with the rebate tool. When scanning receipts from certain types of stores, the program will not recognize the store name. Thus you are unable to get credit for that receipt. The first type of store I noticed this with is vaping stores. However, the final straw came today when I tried scanning a receipt for Cabelas. The program recognized the transaction total and date but would not pick up the store name even though the logo and name are clearly printed. With in just seconds of a tenth and final attempt to scan this receipt I get a push notification from the app about how the GOP is blocking gun restrictions. If you are going to make an app that is going to cater to one ideology that is fine. It’s your right, but please state this in the description.

I’ll start this review with a caveat: Maybe, because of the ongoing feud between MS & Apple it just doesn’t work too well with iOS. That being said: Things just don’t work. You get a response to a comment and you can’t link back to it to respond. You get responses and you get no clue as to what the response is in reference to. The app doesn’t even tell you what comment is being responded to. It is just an awful, maybe typical Microsoft mess. I’m about to delete the app and forget all about it. It’s probably a perfect example of the many reasons why I prefer Apple anything over Microsoft anything. They just can’t get their act together over @ MS. Just deleted the app. Censorship crossed the threshold of the ridiculous. It’s their app, they can allow and disallow anything they please. But the political bias has become overwhelming.

I sent a ticket to microsoft last month (February) and all I received what is an automated email saying that someone would get back to me. I still have not had a response from anyone. I had noticed I had $20 cash for that I had forgotten about from signing up with something. And that it was ready to be cashed out since September 2022. So I got excited and went ahead and type in my email address to cash it out to my PayPal. However, I did not realise that I had typed in my email address incorrectly by missing one letter. It says that my cashback was sent. However, I did not ever receive it. I need someone to fix this asap! This is so road that I should wait one whole month for someone to respond back to me. Kittie

I don’t need a news app from Microsoft but when I click on some articles from MSN or Google Chrome home page, it forces me to use the app to read the full article. Other times, even if it doesn’t force you then, it does once you try to comment on an article. I go ahead and let it start the app, take me to the article and then try to comment. This doesn’t work since it says I have to be signed in and the sign in button doesn’t work. I can actually sign in under the app but still forces me to try to sign in on individual articles but it won’t work. If I’m signed in on their darn app why do I have to sign in on the article page?? I don’t understand how this huge company can make such a broken and annoying product and predicament. SMH

I’m hoping that Microsoft sees this as their link for support is a dead end. I use start on both my iPhone and Windows tablet. I don’t know how many times I’ve told it to block whole categories but they still show up…in both places. If I tell you I’m not interested in entertainment news, why do you keep adding that to my news feed? Same is true for some other categories. Come on guys, fix this! Update March 2: still the same. I get a lot of entertainment news that I don’t want and sources I’ve blocked turn up anyway. I’m a big Microsoft fan but you guys blew this one. Also the constant scrolling back to the top is wasteful of my time. Why can’t your feed pick up at the last story I read?

My gripe is less the app itself, and the integration, or failure there in, of the MSN website when opened in iPhone Safari. I’ve been accessing MSN for 6-7 years for news. About a year ago I started getting prompts to either continue reading in webpage, or open in the MS Start app. A nuisance, but still an option. Lately however, the option to read in-browser hasn’t worked. Instead, I’m forced to “Read in the app”. Only problem is that the link rarely works, and in the failed process it opens an iTunes app loader page, a redirect tab, a Start App launch…without the desired story…and poor search qualities to find the story that took me down this rabbit hole in the first place. Epic fail; loads of frustration; numerous tabs and/or windows to now close or navigate; complete loss of interest in the original story and little motivation to want to use MSN or MS Start in the future. Nice going folks; you had a loyal cu, who actually occasionally made choices from the advertising, who’s now looking to Yahoo or anything other than Bing/MSN/MS Start for their news 🤨. Friggin Reddit is better for than this nonsense.

Like many I downloaded it for the cash back feature. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It rejects some receipts for very odd reasons. I’ve had receipts rejected because the app claimed it was a duplicate receipt even though I scanned it immediately after walking in my house after making the purchase. I had a new reason today. The receipt was rejected because they only accept paper receipts. It was a paper receipt from the same grocery store I’ve scanned receipts from many times. Sure it’s only a penny but those pennies add up especially if you’re Microsoft and thousands of people are having receipts rejected that shouldn’t be.

I watched the first 3 episodes last night and realized for the first time what a horrible disservice they’ve been given. I believe their story Is the truth. They are obviously very much in love. And next to nothing about Megan’s outstanding work in standing up for the rights of others, her solo work in Africa, her high intelligence and caring nature have been written about. She is constantly referred to in derogatory terms. So wrong! And Harry is obviously an intelligent, caring and sensitive man who also happens to be quite handsome. I loved the pics of their sweet family. And applaud their bravery in leaving the firm in order to save their own family. While watching I couldn’t help but wonder if William and Kate wish it were themselves. Really looking forward to the next three episodes. Also, my husband who never follows the royals watched the 3 episodes straight in a row with me and agreed with my thoughts.

I read this every day but...it has issues. Sometimes you click on a story only for another story - the wrong story to appear. They will talk about a video but won’t include the link for it - which is rather annoying. If you click on the picture for the story it will sometimes include other random pictures. The “Good news” isn’t updated often enough - really? It’s that hard to find good things to report? And sometimes the “good news” is depressing. It’s just ok but better than most of the other stuff.

This app works very well. I really liked the Apple News app, (in the beginning), but then there became too many articles that where behind a paywall, which was a waste of my time. Plus, it was inconsistent where it would open and load all stories quickly and then open very slowly the next time. Microsoft’s news app has been very consistent at opening fast, very interesting stories/articles, and a well laid out UI. Big fan so far! Keep up the great work Microsoft!!

Pretty sure they delete bad reviews. I have been sticking with this app for years , but WHY CANT THEY GET IT RIGHT ?? The webpage is great . But at least half the articles make you open the app to continue to read the read the article. So you hit open app and it takes you to the store , where you hit open and it takes you to the main page and not the article itself. This means you have lost the article you were reading. This has been an ongoing issue with this app. The other extremely annoying thing about the app is that it does not have a specific news feed on home page . I do not want to read about home decor or the kardashians or what people think of the new Dyson vacuum. I want news . Do Better !

The updated newspage is messy and hard to read. The story tiles are arranged in in two randomly staggered columns, which results in a confusing jumble to the eyes. You can’t scan the articles left to right because the headlines don’t line up, and you can’t scan the columns top to bottom, because there is no bottom of the page. This is beyond annoying. Whoever designed it need to go back to Layout 101. Please line up the story tiles left to right to make the page readable again! The content is what it is. This isn’t so important to me because I seek news from multiple sources. But it has to be easily readable or it’s a no-go.

I am so, so upset about this radical redesign that MSN just did. I have three or four news apps that I check in with a few times a week, but this was the app that I would spend time on nearly twice a day. I loved its simplistic, clear-cut layout. This layout made it stand out from all other news apps. Now it’s ruined because of Microsoft who only took over because its its greedy, never-satisfied, and has a constant Need to monopolize wherever it can. I’m so saddened by this. I did not realize that my innocently pressing “update” would cause this to happen. I’m going to try to give it a chance, but something tells me I’ll be forced to delete it in a week. I can’t believe that Microsoft took over and ruined what used to be one of my favorite apps.

I’ve had this app since my days of using a Nokia Lumia 1020. Been through a ton of updates. I recommend this app to everyone. Going forward I can’t. I’m not a fan of the new layout at all with the last update. To me it seems just a giant mess. And it made finding news articles even harder to find. I’m here for the news, why do I need to see groceries and everything else. Stop trying to be like apple news. Not everything apple dose is a good thing. As I type this review on an IPhone. I now the irony. I’ll keep the app around play around more with it. Hopefully get use to it. I won’t be recommending it to anyone for awhile. Was one of the best news apps out there and now just like everyone else’s. And not good at it.

Not sure who is running this app. However reading people’s thoughts on Trump in this app mostly saying he should be locked up in jail but why. Don’t you think if he did something wrong that he would be locked up? So yes sounds like a witch hunt. You got to many people on a band wagon or someone controlling bc when I tried to share a comment well guess what it wouldn’t let me. So don’t fall far this. Something is up with this app in my opinion kinda like Jan 6 when trump was set up by a lot of dem people but what do I know. “Trump is not in jail” oh I don’t know bc he is innocent. Huh who of thought. Wake up people before it’s to late it’s MAGA or it’s going to get worse check out Newsmax. Have a good day and God bless America!

I mainly use it for news as I don’t like Google news trying to view everything in its own browser. This one will take me to the actual site when I click on anything on the news article. However, it never refreshes on the “For You” tab. I click on refresh but it still won’t. I have to click on a different tab, and come back to “For You” tab to refresh. Other tabs are a hit or miss for refreshing. Sometimes they do and sometimes I have to do the same thing for them too. So basically, I am back to using Google News again.

This app has changed dramatically since i first downloaded it and now they dont even care what type of news you are looking at. For instance, under the sports headlines today I saw a headline titled, "LA reaches settlement over alleged at-home Covid 19 test kits".. not too sure what that had to do with sports, that is not the only example of this, there was also "Depressed demand forcing Wisconsin dairy farmers to dump milk", again nothing to do with sports. Additionally, whoever developed this app thought it would be a great idea to have NO end to the headlines under each section, so if you think you are going to get the bottom of page it just keeps loading more headlines whether they are relevant or not. This app has gone down the tubes, its absolute trash now.

Update: apparently the developers don't read the reviews. This thing has gotten worse. Open the app, swipe through two or three articles and CRASH! C'mon, folks! Do better! My complaint before was that each time the app loses focus and then is brought back to the foreground, it resets itself. This means that you have to scroll through all of the stories to find where you were; assuming you remember. Now, when I try to share something via Twitter or Facebook (on my iPad Air), the pop up window loses focus while I'm typing and I have to start over again. Definitely going to look for a replacement now. The app owners apparently don't care and definitely don't test their product.

I can be walking in the kitchen or in the yard still enjoying listening to the personalized newest content.I hope I can use a voice command to select the news or jump around this must be a totally hands-free discipline the mobile working from home or multitasking while consuming personalized news. The most impressive part is AI voice quality is unmatched anywhere! A great job by Microsoft AI!!!

What a shady, dishonest update. What was once an application focused on actually displaying news is now a sneaky way to trick people into using Bing. How so? When you load the application, you’re given a nearly identical experience as the Edge browser’s start page. There’s a search box, but if you think you’re searching for news topics, you’re wrong - it’s Bing. Looking for news? Sure, there’s a few headlines on that Edge start page, but the functionally you would expect to find and was central in previous versions is now buried in the third tab. It’s this sort of anti-user practice that build a generation of folks who lack faith in anything from Microsoft.

Unlike many of Microsoft's other apps, this one is much better on Windows Mobile and full Windows 10 than it is on iOS. Microsoft's News app on iOS is quite clunky and outdated when compared to similar news apps. It jumps into a different window just to show a picture, unlike their own Windows platform app which overlays the image. Navigation is difficult, with the back button way in the top corner and access to my "interest" topics buried in a top menu, instead of laid out with the other "main" topics. One last thing that I find quite confusing in this app - the lack of any useful settings. There is really only a way to sign into an account, and pick a language. That's about it. What about options for video playback? What about text sizes?! What about easier ways to choose and navigate content and interests? What about a dark theme choice!? For Microsoft's "dump windows and build on other platforms" mobile strategy, this sure falls flat. It's a terrible experience.

I haven’t experienced any crashes yet as others have. I use this on an iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 Plus. I haven’t watched or read the news for many years since it’s mostly negative and all politics is garbage. I own this for one reason. ‘GOOD NEWS’. It’s about time someone did something like this. I can now skip all the negative bull**** and go straight to the stuff that doesn’t try to pull me down. Then I can skip right over to technology and be done. Super easy.

Really do not want to see like or dislike options. Not interested in opinions. News is news and is meant to inform. It seems as if you added this feature as a point of entertainment for people. I think that’s sad and essentially adds fuel to the fire in regards to some stories since the opinions written are not informed at all. And many will view some opinions as fact. I think that sets dangerous precedent as we all have come to see over the last couple of years. There better formats for expressing opinions. As far as the layout goes I really preferred it the way it was. Should now be called MSN Entertainment. I will seek out other sources of news.

Reading article and all of a sudden it disappeared. Couldn’t get it back or at times not even find the article. I’ve also flagged articles that I wanted to follow, and never see them again. And yes, I know the difference between follow and delete. If this was a one time issue I could accept it, but it’s not just one time. It’s been multiple times and over a variety of topics. If it can be posted IT SHOULD NOT DISAPPEAR. Or is that just good old CENSORSHIP and CORRUPTION or someone decided it was not that much of an article. OH SNAP — isn’t that the same thing?

I’ve used Microsoft news before, but uninstalled due to not having features I find important, especially the widget. Now it’s there and I’m happy as can be with Microsoft News, BUT there is one feature that is lacking; Custom news notifications. I want to be notified when other topics I follow have new stories. My Notification Center and widget are loaded with political stories, but not with what’s important to me too, which doesn’t make sense. Thanks Microsoft News for making a reliable app that I can count on!

This app used to be my go-to for global news. Yet the latest redesign makes created a news app full of unnecessary junk stories and a negative reading experience. For example, the addition of social features makes me feel like I’m on a social app, rather than a news app. The inability to view and zoom in on the news photos, makes the stories less engaging. The reorganization of content aims to direct readers to what the app wants the user to read, instead of what the user wants to read. I encourage the product leads to take a step back and gain a better understanding of what their core audience actually wants in a news app.

Great app to get the daily news And be on top of our country’s current events. I would like more if it did not have the comments section. Most comments are disgraceful, ignorant and resentful. The people commenting on the news have nothing* better to do than attack the messenger and spit venous saliva. Please close the comments section so I can read the news without the feeling of grief for my country. Thanks

I’ve scanned 6 receipts and I still haven’t got my 1,000 Microsoft point reward, although I still have received my 3 dollars I was promised. Over all, the app is great except this one take back. To be honest, I only use this app for Microsoft rewards so I probably shouldn’t be rating it based off of one part of the app. But, I like how you can points reading and the stories are interesting and up-to-date. The shopping mechanism is good as well because of the deals and nice choices you can pick from. I give Start 3 stars.

I have used this app for years, even before it was renamed Start. They have taken away access to my interests, only allowing a news scroll, and their “news sources” have devolved to things like Raw Story and Pop Sugar in place of credible news organizations. I have tried blocking many of these, but with the latest builds even when I block them the same sources and “articles” keep appearing. Microsoft had a good app and they have ruined it. It’s no wonder there are so many uninformed people out there sure of what they know. Go elsewhere for news.

The interface and aesthetics of the app are phenomenal, however, I wish that Microsoft gave us the ability to choose who we actually follow on the web. Set aside any feelings you have about politics/etc., and just focus on what would make the app better for the end user. I personally don’t align with any political party, but can tell when developers favour certain news organisations over others. I wish Microsoft would allow me to choose whoever and not choose whoever I want in regards to subscribing when using the app. I like to follow certain websites when scouring the web for news and this app doesn’t allow me any customisation whatsoever on that front. Until this happens, I will keep this uninstalled from my device. 5/5 app interface 0/5 customisation 2.4/5 overall review +0.5/5 because Apple doesn’t do half stars Thanks for listening!

The options to share an article are too limited. Sharing via email provides the MSN URL shortcut, which is almost as annoying as AMP links in Google News. There are no options to open the article in a web browser. To locate the URL of the original site, sometimes I need to enter the title of the article into a search engine. The most annoying issue is when sharing an article via text, the prompt requesting I write a review prevents me from selecting a contact and also will not let me respond to their request. I have no graceful way to proceed and must close the app and then relaunch it.