Bloomberg: Business News Daily Reviews

by EricRhysTaylor

I enjoy this app news and the news app on my iPhone. However I subscribed under their promo for $90 for six months and then that rolled over to an exorbitantly priced $200 for six months. At the time when that happened I thought I was getting a year at that rate. When I realized six months later and they roll me over again at $200 that this was only for six months and I was spending $400 every year for news that I only read lightly I requested that they cancel the renewal and refund the $200. it had only been a few days since they rolled me over and they had never sent me any advance notice that the charge was going to go through for a six month additional subscription. They were very rude and totally disinterested in meeting my needs and refused to cancel the renewal and refund my money or even give me a prorated refund. They just kept going back to their subscription policy which is 100% inflexible. This kind of subscription policy is a great way to ruin relationships with supposedly valued clients and they should be ashamed of themselves. Once the six-month period is over I will make sure to never subscribe to this app again.

by GtrInLA

If you are searching for a non biased source of political news keep searching. I subscribe for the financial news only and ignore anything related to politics, and I only stay subscribed temporarily because I got a deal on my monthly subscription a while back. Also Bloomberg is repeatedly slow on my updated iPhone X, Bloomberg does not support night mode STILL so put on them sunglasses if you like reading news in a dark room, never mind disrupting your wife/husband next to you. Links within Bloomberg often take you out of Bloomberg and opens Safari where you have to keep logging in with your credentials, what a mess!
I’ll most certainly cancel the subscription not because of it’s poor overall experience but on the simple basis that if I pay for news I expect news, not opinion.

by Finance Professional 888

This is supposed to be for business professionals. Even for paying subscribers, the ads are on, there is no way to turn them off, and extremely irritating videos selling useless stuff keeps playing automatically with audio as you scroll to read the news. This is not just distracting, and causes you to lose focus on the news articles, but for business professionals, you cannot use Bloomberg in business settings (like a meeting) because the audio for these ad videos will play automatically while you are reading an article. And they have multiple of these audios per news article, so a video could play 3 times or more as you scroll thru to read a single article. And there is no way to turn this off. And note again, that this is for a PAID subscription. Unacceptable. Turn off all ads for paid subscribers, or make it free.

by G1ymoore

I really enjoy the content that this app provides but that has been completely overshadowed by the invasion of ads. As a paying subscriber I do not want to be flooded with ads.

For a news service that is so expensive, it is absurd to also force ads into your news. It feels cheap to have clickbait slapping you across the face three times per article. There are plenty of consumer financial news that can easily match that of this app however I really appreciated the content their staff produced. It is a disservice to the writers and everyone else working on the platform by forcing their content to be smeared with ads.

Please make a clean and unadulterated reader and you will have a five star review as well as my subscription back.

by Rnshwa00

The older (black background) version of this app was *so* much better one wonders why they seemingly deliberately stripped out so much of what made it special. Was it to drive users to an expensive paid app that most investors won't purchase?

this app' sown FAQ concedes that Realized Gains/Losses and the Market Monitor features are no longer available. News for stocks in watchlists are also more limited. The portfolio performance and diversify model charts are also missing, but may return in a future release. Heck the portfolio listings won't even add the company name with the stock ticker as they used to.

There was nothing wrong with the old release, which apparently they don't want folks using any longer, as it locks up after limited use with a reminder to download and use the new version, even to remove the older (preferred) version.

Update: After a series of version updates, Bloomberg if anything has gotten worse. Slow response and lockups make for a bad user experience. And the original (black background) version we all liked? this app continues its crippling - Headlines and News no longer work, Watchlists no longer reflect edits, and sector analysis dead. Really would like to find an app more like the original.

by NRB525

I pay the $35 monthly subscription fee, and am overwhelmed with ads in every article I read. The static ads are one image block, repeated multiple times through the body of the article, and the ad blocks are replaced rapidly every few seconds, with a new ad image. While this new ad image is loading, the text jumps as the last ad image was removed, because it takes up less space now, but there is still a big blank spot on the screen. When the new multiple-image ad loads throughout the article text, the article text jumps again to make room for the ad. Now I’m also getting ads that arrive with sound on, loading in one mystery location in the article, that you can’t turn off the sound. If you touch the playing ad wrong, Safari is opened because it wants to sell you NOW! These sound ads also heat up the iPad because it’s processing so furiously. Hey Mike, Why should I pay the $35 if I can’t read through an article? Are you listening?

by Apptoknow

Just installed this a couple days ago. The news articles and stock tools are top notch. Still trying to navigate through everything; however Bloomberg constantly freezes every few minutes. Consequently, unless this is quickly fixed, i will have to ditch Bloomberg and cancel my paid subscription. Thing is, i see this being a common theme here in Bloomberg review section over this last month. Evidently, it is affecting only IOS, from what i can decipher. So this app, hopefully you can get this resolved soon or there will definitely soon be an exodus of IOS users departing from your APP Store revenue stream. Please get the fixed.

by Keith-My-Ath

Can someone please explain the live tv ad algorith?!

When live streaming via web, there are limited ads and the live markets keep flipping over on the screen. This is great as I can track markets without changing screens.

On Bloomberg though (same goes for the Smart TV app too), each time these live markets start flipping, I get the this app TV ad on repeat until the live tv show continues. What possible value does this add to this app? Advertising to an already paying customer while hurting my user experience has a higher probability of my finding an alternative content provider than spending more on this app. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that ads are important to fund the organisation, but showing the same ad on repeat 15 times in a row while I am using the product that is being advertised is just plain stupid. If you don’t have ads to show, just show the live programming.

What’s more is, now I don’t get to follow market movements while watching TV so now I need to switch between apps to follow market movements too. It is seriously annoying.

I am a big fan of your content but if this is what I have to endure there are alternatives which is less annoying.

by Tlsalias

I was excited to see an update to Bloomberg because it has been such a pain. All in all, to sum it up: great content terrible after delivery. Lots of user interface bugs. The Apple TV version is also similar in that it has excellent world class content with poor streaming delivery and difficult navigation.
Certainly keeps me at bay from being a casual subscriber.
I have used Bloomberg and enjoyed the content for a long period of time. You’d think they would eventually get it together and do some testing before rolling it out.
I’m a big fan of the this app organization and the reporters, anchors and content creators but when it comes to app development, testing and quality control, there seems to be an anti-Apple virus or something because it just is too much for too long period of time.

by Law9128

Before the recent update, there is a lengthy list of news from different sections (including Most Read section), and one need to scroll down for quite some time to get to the bottom of it, which makes Bloomberg addictive. But, in the recently updated version, there is just a For You page, and that’s it, beyond the trending news section, and you can literally read through all headlines under 5 minutes. I can notice a significant drop in my Average Time Spent on Bloomberg as a result of this change. In essence, I don’t see how the newly updated version is benefiting this app’s readership retention rate & engagement metrics.

by Ccox4669

Bloomberg is supposed to be able to deliver you market-related news. That’s why it exists. However, unless it’s current or fairly recent, do not expect quality archives - even of this app’s own old articles. I’ve used this since it’s debut, very bumpy road of updates, addition of ads, more monetization, now paywall, all of which are tertiary to DELIVERING NEWS. If I type in a stock symbol and you can’t even bother bringing your own articles written about the company, what is the point of using Bloomberg ?!

But I do appreciate the morning daily digest so I know what Wall Street thinks I should care about for the next 24 hours. That’s semi-helpful. But...There’s a laundry list of features Bloomberg is missing, all of which it either used to have or could easily be added so I never use it very long.

by Pióro

I primarily use Bloomberg to listen to the live radio stream. The content, guests, and hosts are world class and if only reviewing them it would be an easy five stars. The issues that drag down the rating is the incessant amount of ads, especially irrelevant ads that repeat themselves. Understood you need ads to generate revenue, but it could be better organized to meet your targets and keep a listener happy. Worst part is the timing of the ads often cuts into the commentary making you miss vital information. Second Bloomberg draws a disproportionate amount of battery. I’m using a 1 year old iPhone 11 so it should be fine and don’t have this issue on even video streaming apps.

by Micheal Padraig

1. App frequently freezes during a commercial (generally with 3 seconds left) and then I have to restart. (I am on a 2020 iPad Pro and am running PadOS 14.8). 2. Because the audio is muted during the commercials, I frequently do not notice the freeze during the commercial and then miss program content. 3. When I do reboot, yes, I am stuck with a commercial, again Please fix this, developers. Please respond back with comments. The content of Bloomberg are phenomenal. Well worth the good chunk of change they charge.

BTW…. I notice that critical reviews, ones that contain bug reports or complaints are NOT RESPONDED TO. What gives? All critical app reviews of 3 stars or below should be responded to within 48 hours. That is just good business AND, fundamentally, respect for the customer. Get with it!

by Surveillance Groupie

Love the content but the I find Bloomberg buggy. I was forced to switch from the B-Radio app to Bloomberg and ever since I have incurred way more commercials. The preroll ads are very annoying because if I am listening to a radio show and Bloomberg or stream drops I am forced to watch another preroll ad before reengaging. Sometimes I am hit with a preroll ad, then more ads and then finally several mins later I get to the content. Vs if I open up iHeartRadio I can immediately start streaming.
I find that my streaming radio drops/the radio function fails all the time while I am at home on WiFi. No idea why as I don’t have the same issues with other services.

by LinkedUpAgain

iOS Dark Theme mode please!!! I don’t know why but Bloomberg pages are so bright that it’s like looking at a light bulb.
Also, it would be nice to at least slightly customize the pages (maybe I missed this). As an example, I think the opinion columns are interesting but it’s not why I subscribe and would like to not end up with so much emphasis to read them. Most especially I don’t like the endlessly political biased opinions when fact based journalism about Washington (and state issues) almost don’t exist as compared to opinions - save that for blogs and talk radio. The built in ads can sort of get like that as well sometimes

by Wrbellsugar

I love Bloomberg ! I watch this app TV and listen to this app Radio all the time. It would however be nice to save commodities such as Brent crude to your watchlist even if they are saved as favorites somewhere else as a favorite on Bloomberg .
I found the this app TV and this app Radio area on Bloomberg to watch and listen to this app Radio! Outstanding! 🙂
I do feel recent changes to Bloomberg where users must subscribe to an unlimited Digital Subscription is not a good idea to be able to view more than 9 stories and Bloomberg limiting users to only 30 min a day. Bloomberg and the website really needs to rethink this. It’s a bad idea.

by Presentywriter

Ads are on even for paying subscribers like me and they start playing in the background while you can’t turn them off anywhere in Bloomberg .
I have often encountered some bugs which have to be fixed like for example having to tap mulptiple times the save button or other buttons until it gets the command;
This has been happening pretty often lately.
It lacks dark mode and the editors should really consider adding it as an option for less eye strain reading.

by Paypaldylan

After first downloading this app some of the magazine articles, market updates and data were overwhelming. Though, after subscribing for a few months I have a little bit of a better understanding of economics, international politics and have read great articles on topics ranging from North Korea to the Opioid epidemic. According to my perspective very accommodating to people of all political beliefs (I guess as this is business focused and not liberal/republican etc) and great to read.

by Aardvark Of The North

this app’s coverage of financial news is first-rate. Unfortunately Bloomberg is not of that quality. It is slow, won’t let you swipe past a story until all the ads have loaded, which can easily take 5 seconds. On my iPad I constantly find myself launching the video attached to the story when I don’t want to ... then it’s again a slow process before Bloomberg will let you close it.

The standard in news apps is set by the NYT and the Guardian. this app needs to up their game

by Fred.2

I was using this app radio until they made me use Bloomberg. I have to hit 10 times more buttons to get to the radio. I do not mind the commercials, but I start and stop the radio about 20 times a day. I do not want to go throw all the hassle of hitting all the steps to listen to the radio.
What happened to the day you could just push the on button and had all the presets of your favorite channels. It was only one on butter and one preset 1/2 second and bam noise that you want. The phone has more but it talks longer to do what you want.

by Pthatph

The original app was actually very useful, especially the watch list. Unfortunately, every update made the features worse - the latest allows you only 25 stocks to monitor (probably because the developers know their app freezes or slows down to uselessness beyond 25) and two watchlists max (so too bad for you if you are monitoring more than 50 issues); plus, it will auto shutdown after a few minutes of use, without the courtesy of even a simple warning. All these new features in the updates were most likely deliberate, to hopefully make one subscribe to their professional version of Bloomberg . That's business! Still your choice to use or not - it's for free, after all.

by The Business Addict

I pay for the this app channel with my Charter television subscription. When I watch the channel I also put up with all of the advertising.

When I try to watch the this app channel on my mobile devices they say they limit me to 30 minutes per day and this still includes the commercials. Charging a fee to mobile users and still having commercials on the channel is double dipping if not triple dipping when considering my Charter fee.

I recommend watching alternative business news channels where you currently only pay once. this app is not that special and has become another sales channel for them to sell their their software services.

by Sad Bloomberg News Reader

I have been using Bloomberg for easily 4 years. I loved it when I first started using it, but, slowly but surely they began to monetize the content with ads which I am all for. However recently on top of the layers of ads and methods of monetizing their content which is already heavily subsidized by this app’s main business of selling institutional investors trading systems, they have thrown a 35 dollars a month pay wall in front of the same content they have given the public access to with ad support. 35 dollars a month is far too much for an application that has become more and more restrictive in how you use it (in an intelligent but frustrating attempt to maximize ad-space values) this may work for the people who you already have subscribing to your this app systems but that’s an obscene amount of money for the news especially to a millennial that is just seeking some less biased news to inform him in this world that’s upside down in terms of the news presented to the public. Rethink your pricing structure please 35 dollars a month for a student and to be honest for most people who don’t work in finance is just far too much.

by Oglopfoosbottom

Bloomberg has frustrated me greatly. I am an unlimited digital subscriber and yet I still have to sit through ad after ad after ad. Why? That makes no sense to me and I plan to cancel my subscription at this point because I’m just not sure what this gets me. Also, Bloomberg and website look sleek, but I have generally found to be a nightmare to actually navigate for content I’m looking for. It also drives me up a wall that I pay what I pay and yet I can only see excerpts instead of full interviews most the time. I wanted to pay for less noise and deeper insight, I got neither of those two things. If they addressed some of those issues, this would easily be a 5 star review. Remove ads for customers that pay you, and make your video catalog and radio catalog simpler to navigate and more reliable (holy crap do their proxy servers crash constantly).

by Newbie1501

This is a good source of news, however:

There is no way to modify the GUI: The fonts are way too small and pinching is not available to increase their size on the screen. The back button is stuck at the lower left, out of reach for holding an iPad with two hands. The amount of news is actually a little sparse, considering this app must publish stories every few minutes. And the ads are fairly atrocious, frequently large, locked in place so that the news must scroll over them, and not really relevant to either the article or in my opinion a business targeted audience.

Other than that, not bad :)

by TRemlinger16

I'm a sophomore in college and we don't have cable at my house, so it's often difficult to contribute to classroom discussions about current events. this app is a quick and easy way of staying up to date on what's happening around the world. I find myself spending more time on this app's mobile app than on my other popular apps such as Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook.