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If you have an iPhone I would recommend you not even bother trying to use this (cr)app. I’ve been using this app for several years to listen to local and national public radio stations, as well as read quick headlines. It has always been fairly buggy, dropping streams or just not connecting. It had seemed to be improving until this last week or so, and I appreciated the stability. It is has become my primary way to consume NPR and local radio station content. Now it is so broken it is not worth using, and I’m wondering if I really need to continue contributing to NPR as a supporter, if they are going to waste funds on worthless apps. Now my closest local station, OPB, never works. When I play it, I get the (annoying) bumper ad but then nothing—just “dead air”. My next most local station, KUOW, does work, but drops every few minutes, usually for a few seconds and then repeating the (ever annoying) bumper ad—leading me to think the connection was broken and reconnected. It often just stops for no reason. I can click the Play button on my iPhone’s lock screen or my Apple Watch, which usually does nothing, then I have to unlock phone, go to the app and press play or try restarting app. These issues occur all the time now, and with multiple locations—different Wi-Fi networks and using cellular data. So it is not just my network.

After thinking about it overnight, I want to change from 1 star to 0 stars, with following addition to my review: I relied on the podcast playlist for about 75-80 percent of the NPR content I consume. Now you’ve taken that away...this is 2nd time in less than a year you’ve completely disregarded members (forced NPR one migration was first). Whoever is making these decisions needs to go. As noted, I’m a member; but plan to withhold at least 75-80% of my contribution next year as I’ll be consuming a lot less NPR now that app worthless. You’re obviously wasting money, disregarding supporters and making dumb decisions. NPR News app was never glitzy but it was a great app; please bring it back. This new version is as bad as the awful NPR One! I used the old NPR News app to select the stories from Morning Edition or ATC that I may have missed or a Fresh Air interview - just select add to playlist...and a minute later have a line up of 6-12 stories I wanted to hear. Now I have no idea how to create a playlist of just the stories I want to hear. It seems with new app, it’s listen to the whole show or nothing. As I said when we were forced onto NPR One last year - please bring back NPR News....this new app is again a step backward! You listened last time and restored NPR News, hopefully you’ll give us a choice again as I don’t see much use in the new app.

Whoever was in charge of the project to build this appshould not only be fired, but they should be dragged in front of all the NPR employees, have the stripes ripped from their shoulders, their sword snapped in two across the knee of some enforcer, and be sent alone out the gates of the fort out into the wilderness, never to be seen or heard from again. Seriously, this work should bring shame to the entire family of whomever turned it in as a complete project. I like to fall asleep to talk. Especially any kind of science story. So with that in mind NPR’s app should easily be in my top ten and maybe it would be, had they bothered to build an app. Want to make a playlist of the stories you’re interested in? Well, there’s some buttons that will take you, step by step, through all the sensations of picking out your own stories and putting them in the order you choose, but that’s about where it ends. Half the time, the “playlist” stops after the first story. Great a playlist of one, yay? The other half the time, when it does continue to the next story, it starts about 2/3 of the way. This would be useful, we’re I only interested in the end of a story. Unfortunately, as much as I appreciate a good landing, I need the context. This app is so poorly made it’s offensive.