KING 5 News for Seattle/Tacoma Reviews

KING5News will test your patience and civility. First, the stream randomly breaks. Often. Even in good coverage areas where other streaming video does not. Being video, the screen must be opened and unlocked to continue listening. Fine, not their fault. But this leaves it susceptible to any and every unintentional button press on a screen chock full of links. Didn’t mean to leave the live stream? Fine, you can now sit through a minute of extra, bonus commercials just for doing something modern, like streaming, before you can rejoin the actual broadcast. Also for your trouble of streaming, you will get DOUBLE commercials of creepy ads for the murder network, including bloody hands running a chainsaw, and a psychotic, garrote-snapping villain, EVERY 5 MINUTES! It at least does encourage most of us to turn it off due to all these, unless this stuff is your kink.

Let me start by saying that I don’t mind learning a new app. I will say that it did take me a while to figure out that I have to press the Star in the upper left corner to get to the topic section; world, local, sports, etc. I also don’t care for the emphasis on videos. One because I prefer to read the article and two because if I hit the video I have to watch another ad, maybe two if I maximize the screen. Love the Weather section which I use most often because Rich, in my experience, is the most accurate in predicting what will be going on. And I really LOVE the fact that they have now added an hourly forecast for the day. Spend a lot of time outdoors and now I can see when the rain is going to hit when there is a front coming in. All in All a pretty good job.

I like the local news content, it’s relevant to my area. The news oftentimes lack simple news basics though, like e.g. showing a map with location or town of a reported event.
The video experience is generally bad. The ads are very repetitive which is a downer by itself, and sometimes an ad (again, usually the same one) plays again just upon trying to rotate and enlarge a video, which is a standard task on a phone. Both rotation and enlarging are also manual, it should be automatic (turning the device sideways should instantly rotate and enlarge the video, that is standard everywhere else). At the end of a video I’ve often experienced an unwanted repeat of the ad already seen a minute ago, followed by playing the next news video I never wanted to see.

I find it helpful to hear and see what is going and what goes on here locally regional national and world wide especially with the corona virus disease going on and still wide spread. I am developmentally mentally and learning disabled get Social Security and Supplemental Security as my source of monthly income to live on and support myself financially Live alone in a one bedroom one bathroom apartment I am single no children and I am female white U S A citizen Washingtonian and I am 43 and a half years of age Was born in Yakima Washington in the year 1976

The King5 news app is currently in my opinion the best app for local news in Wa state as it gives you current up to date news not like other apps that give you back dated news it great and vital because of COVID corona virus and climate change to have clear correct information as soon as it’s checked out and verified by the news out let. Thank You King5 for staying true to the old time rules of new information to the public.

This “new” app lacks native iOS features. First, the font size is permanently too small for the list of news. It doesn’t support your desired font size on device. So be prepared to squint. Scrolling has stutters even on a fast modern iPhone.

KING5News doesn’t always understand its on a mobile device, as it cuts off its own app messages such as after you favorite some topics.

There’s also so much junk in the weather tab that it’s pointless to try to use it to quickly see any real weather info.

Also, switching from weather tab to home tab can put me into an progress spinner blank screen that can take a full minute or more to resolve (even while on a fast wifi network). It shows there’s little to no local caching of news stories. Most of KING5News feels like just a web browser - and worse than that as KING5News likes to clear and re-present the page a lot, causing flashy behavior. The ads often appear well after the story appears, causing further flash and annoyance.

In sum, avoid this headache of an app until they rewrite it yet again someday.

KING5News works well and sends timely news updates. You will have to watch a commercial in order to watch televised news segments, but only at the start of the clip. There are click bait ads at the bottom of the screen but that’s no different than their website. Overall I’m pleased with it and I’ve watched quite a few live broadcast during these coronavirus times.

KING5News is literally the last local news source to post breaking news. I’ve been a King5 supporter and follower for decades but have been feeling so let down by the lack of information and speed. I understand the need to verify sources etc, but there is no excuse when I hear from many, many other outlets about news that matters to my family. Stories posted to KING5News also seem to not be refreshed very often and I’ve been looking at new sources to get addition information. The last straw was the very slow reporting and lack of information given about the schools closing due to the Coronavirus. Goodbye King5

The previous set-up was so much easier to navigate. I could easily find the stories I wanted to read and there was more variety related to local, national, and world news. Now it seems I can only see a few hand-picked stories or it takes me forever to find a story. It seems like you have removed content and clarity to make it look prettier. For example, you used to have a section for sports, with then access to the individual sport categories—NFL, MLB, etc. now it’s gone and I can see maybe 2 sport stories. Can’t access any high school sport scores—or at least can’t find them.
I would like to go back to using KING5News for news, but I guess I will try to find a better one.

King5 is a great source of all news, especially good for local news, weather and traffic. Unfortunately you can be really interested in their content but won’t be able to get through their layers and layers of ads that attempt to play at the beginning of videos and often glitch and eventually block you from watching the content they produce. Honestly surprised that I could not watch a single piece of content today since everything was blocked with broken ad content

I began watching King in the fifties. I can still remember Wanda Wanda. To my great delight when I was an Obstetrician for the Army in Heidelberg in 1976, Dr. Bob Prinz delivered my daughter. As I came to know Bob I learned that Bob was Wanda Wanda’s son. When my wife and I returned to Seattle we both were King news watchers and Seattle Times readers. As we have travelled extensively in retirement, the Seattle Times and King aps have travelled with us. When this extraordinary crisis ends we will continue to travel with both aps.

Many thanks to both
Kurt Weis

I do not like this new app at all! Its cluttered and you can’t easily find what you want. A lot of the banners are cut off like it wasnt formatted correctly (iphone). You have to scroll down to find the section you want instead of easily choosing from the opening page like before. Some sections seemed to have disappeared altogether. Too many ads. Please change it back or make a more user friendly version.

Loved the last generation of the King 5 app. This one crashes 35-50% of the time likely because almost every story has a video associated with it and seems to slow down the story loading. Also every stories video has a 30 second ad! Come on King 5 (broadcast company X) how greedy do you need to be? You’re on-air personalities don't really contribute that much to society as they feel they do. They just speak and read a teleprompter, not actually fight the fires or help clear an accident scene. Get over yourselves. An app should be a quick and EASY, convenient option from a website. Most of the time KING5News isn't.

Since I moved to the Seattle area from Houston in 2015, I have turned on the TV to King 5 every evening at 5 o’clock. I watch the local news, the national news, back to the local news, and then to the Evening show. I enjoy all of the newscasters, the weather reporters, Cisco and the four “stars” of King 5 Evening. I learned to love King 5 for five years before I moved here when I visited my daughter once or twice a year.

Beverly

I highly recommend that you download KING5News. It’s a big upgrade from the older app. The graphics are better and it’s easier to navigate KING5News . The layouts make it convenient to find the things your looking for. It gives you the latest news, everything you need to know! My only small problem is that KING5News seems laggy for me but otherwise, it’s a great app!

I like King 5 news a lot, I didn’t think they needed a new app, Old one was fine. But, I don’t understand why we can’t watch without having subtitle captions on the screen. Most of us are using a phone to watch and the screen is small enough already. Hitting the cc button does nothing. Plz fix this and continue the great reporting.

None are perfect but KING5News seems to be the better of the local news app

Still frustrated with the forced commercials when I’m trying to click on live news and often miss the story I want as I’m redirected to an ad immediately. Ads are fine, but just show them at a time I’m not trying to click to watch a story Infuriating

...I can’t access a feed of articles like the old app. I used to scroll through the top stories, then on to nation/world. Now I get a few local stories and, after scrolling down past several ads and oddly highlighted sections, I finally can ‘view more’ nation/world articles. Except, I can’t really, because it loads the entire story and then follows with an unrelated article from several months past!! Please integrate with old app’s functionality! I’ll have to go with one of the other local stations for now.

Not sure why they would take a nice app with a solid, user friendly interface and replace (not upgrade) with a worse app and interface. Now you have multiple steps to see topics, must hit a small pull down on the left (vs all being large butttons etc). Used to be “news at your fingertips” and easy to navigate, now it feels like I’m going to a website that isn’t optimized for mobile. Might have to go to another news station here in Seattle, this is terrible. Hoping this isn’t a TEGNA standard and they ditch it. Anyone on here giving this thing 5 stars never used the past app.

I find it annoying to have to scroll back to where i was every time I get done reading an article. When I tap to read the full story from the selection of all other articles and once I’m done reading, it always takes me back to the first news article causing me to have to scroll through it again to find where I left off. This is my 4th time using KING5News, forgetting the reason why I stopped using it, annoyed me enough to write a review about it. Hopefully it will get fixed.

I lived on Bainbridge Island, the U District and NE Seattle in the early 70’s I married a west Seattle man and after a few years we moved back to my home state of Maine. I’m still interested in what is going on in our former home. The Bon and Viaduct are gone and tech companies have grown up around the city. Keeping up with KING keeps me in touch with the city I love.
Anne Harrison
Kennebunkport, Maine

Organization is inefficient for optimal reading. Why can I just have a flat scrolling list of articles with icons/videos next to them? Other news apps do this well, and the old King5 app did it too. Enough with trying to invent some new hip way to navigated articles, stick with what works.

KING5News is unresponsive while new content is loading. Scrolling stutters, app is unresponsive for first ~20 seconds.

Lots of overlapping text when using a larger text size on my iPhone. The developers clearly didn’t even test in this scenario.

Bummed I don’t get the live video previews next to each article that were in the last version. Liked those.

Ads at the top of the screen cause the content to dynamically resize right in the middle of reading.

Going to stick with last version until these issues are cleaned up. This version is beta-quality.

I love KING5News! We have a 2nd home in Hawaii and this is a great way to stay up to date on everything local. KING5News is easy to use and full of information.
When we are in town we only watch king 5. It truly is the best.
Thanks king 5 😊

The feed is too short. When I go to the topics I want read and finish them, KING5News forces me back to the top of the home page and I have go back to the middle and scroll through the topics again. The pictures are TOO large and make you scroll MORE to get to an article you want to read.
In short-too much scrolling and not enough content. It’s as if they are over compensating.

Continues to crash on a daily basis. Also miss the old Traffic app, it had camera views and this new version does not.

I hate this new app. Old one you could touch the icon and there you were. Your options don’t even offer traffic like the old one. You can’t read through anything without a kazillion ads. Hate it,
Hate it, hate it. Got it yet. Out with the new. 😡

This has got to be the best news app out there. You get to select what kind of information you want to be updated about and that’s it. You don’t get junk mail or unsolicited crap. You cannot go wrong with downloading KING5News.