NPR Reviews

by Soarin3

I don’t write reviews often, but the disparity between the recently revised this app app and the old version is too great to ignore. The old app, while less ‘modern’ looking, felt less rigid, more customizable, and less cumbersome to use. The utility I miss the most was the ability to create playlists from stories from various this app programs into one stream, and have that stream auto-play from one story to another. Now, if one plays an individual story in Morning Edition, for instance, it does not auto-play the next story; one has to go back into NPR and manually play the next story or the entire program must be played in order for a “playlist” to be created. It’s cumbersome and sometimes dangerous, particularly while listening on the road. I can fathom that this system forces the listener to listen to 1) more ads (which seem to be auto-generated in between stories and could not be before with self-created playlists), and 2) more stories (forcing the listener to listen the entire program instead allowing the ability to choose). Please bring back the functionality of the old app. I have spent the better half of this morning searching for whether it is possible to reinstall old versions of apps in iTunes.

by Justin N Osos

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 this app 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 this app’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. NPR is so poorly made it’s offensive.

by Cassandra Diotima

It’s true, the this app news app had it’s probs - you cld only play individual stories, but you cldnt play an entire show. Well, they changed that. But, they also took away the “play” bar, which allowed you to go back over something you might not have heard, or skip over something u don’t care about. Now if u miss something u hve to re-listen to the entire story - or the entire show if you had made that choice (either that or re-listen to the story, but then yr back to listening to individual stories). Basically it takes away some of the flexibility that makes podcasts easier than the radio show - On Demand is nice, admittedly, but considering I’m listening on my phone the ability to go back over stuff i missed was important to me. It used to be a lot more User Friendly too. There also used to be a great many more podcasts available. Now, instead of an easy to read list of dozens & dozens of podcasts, there’s abt a dozen icons instead - idk the logos for this app shows, so icons take up space while not helping much. There isn’t a Search function neither. I got sold on the update bc of the ability to play the entire show, now I regret it. I might as well just get the this app 1 app that has all their podcasts.

by Aaronmontoya

I used the this app News app every day for years. I queued all the content I cared about when I had time to do so, and then I could return to NPR at any point to listen to all those selections I made. It was nearly perfect—the playlist feature in the previous this app News app was a bit buggy.

In the new this app app, there is no way for me to queue any content, and there is no way to automate playing of content I want to hear. I now simply have to be content with whichever ‘stream’ I’m listening to or be willing to put in a lot of conscious effort to constantly choose the content I want to listen to. I don’t—I switched to an app called News Now, which also does not have the features I want. It does let me stream the day’s national news content without much effort, and that makes it better for me than the new this app app.

Implement a playlist feature in NPR. I want to be able to choose any this app content, especially nationally relevant news segments, to keep in a queue that I can store, return to and choose content from at any time. Until the this app app has a playlist feature that allows me to do these things, it is useless to me.

by UserApp99

The best feature of the old this app News app was the ability of the listener to create a personal playlist from a menu of stories from various this app programs. They’ve taken that functionality away. NPR is essentially useless to me now, and I’m deleting it.

EDIT: eight weeks later, and this app is making qualified statements about they will “work on building a better queued listening experience for this app in the months ahead.” Except this app ALREADY HAD THAT SOLUTION and dumped it, presumably to force listeners to this app One and local stations. As a result, my this app listening has declined by 95%, and I did NOT renew my longstanding membership with my local affiliate. Bring back the playlist!

EDIT (JUNE 10): I see the developer responded to my earlier review. Refusing to renew my this app membership is entirely in line with my objection to the removal of the playlist. Local affiliate fundraising provides stations with funds to pay for programming from national this app, and moreover, one result of the removal of the playlist was to force listeners to the local stations instead of self-curating this app content through NPR . I recognize the importance of local stations, but local stations need to use their leverage to support listeners’ range of options, not reduce them. Until the playlist is restored, we should not contribute to this app through its member stations.

by Northwoods Pr

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 this app content I consume. Now you’ve taken that away...this is 2nd time in less than a year you’ve completely disregarded members (forced this app 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 this app now that app worthless. You’re obviously wasting money, disregarding supporters and making dumb decisions.

this app News app was never glitzy but it was a great app; please bring it back. This new version is as bad as the awful this app One! I used the old this app 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 this app One last year - please bring back this app News....this new app is again a step backward! You listened last time and restored this app News, hopefully you’ll give us a choice again as I don’t see much use in the new app.

by Mbc66

If you have an iPhone I would recommend you not even bother trying to use this (cr)app.
I’ve been using NPR 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 this app 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 this app 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 NPR 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.

by UberFilmsLtd

The new app has a better media player, with great pause and fast forward and rewind features and overall is more stable and reliable. That’s the good news. The bad news- they totally did away with the playlist, making it absolutely impossible to save individual episodes and play them whenever you want to. You’re now limited to selecting the current days version of each program, if you don’t listen to the entire program before the next days program comes out, you’re totally screwed, there’s no way to go back and listen to The previous one. Also every time you exit NPR and come back it completely forgets where you were in the list of episodes for the days program, you have to basically start all over and manually skip ahead. A lot of wasted of time skipping things I’ve already heard just to get back where I left off listening. It’s basically killed the enjoyment of NPR for me and made it nothing but frustrating. I know you guys are trying to force people to listen to the local stations more in order to support them but this is ridiculous. I don’t know who sat down and designed this thing but it seems to have deliberately omitted the very best features of the previous app.

by Ryan9157384

The new this app app seems designed like the this app One app, which is really unfortunate. On the old this app News app, I could create my own playlists, listening to these three stories but not that one. That functionality has all been removed from the new (and certainly not improved) this app app. Sometimes I might want to listen to most of one day’s All Things Considered program, but would (for example) delete the sports stories because I just don’t care about them. With the change to this new this app app, it’s not possible to curate my own this app playlist. It’s frustrating that this app’s “digital” department thinks that this is what their listeners want.

The new this app app is much less listener-friendly and makes it more difficult to seek out new/interesting content. It is still easy to find Morning Edition or All Things Considered—but it is very difficult to find the off-the-wall and obscure programs produced by smaller this app member stations across the country. The old this app News app was great for that.

Ugh. I gave up on using this app One years ago because I didn’t like how that program “decided” for me what it thought I would want to listen to. I was an active user of the this app News app for years and years. I used the Playlist feature on a daily basis. It was a very frustrating morning to be forced into using this new this app app that has taken away much of the functionality of the old this app News app. Please bring the old this app News app back!

by KBdc80

Please, please bring back the previous iOS app—it’s SO far superior to the updated version!! The previous version was great; easy to use and useful. A news app doesn’t need a fancy interface, it needs to quickly let users find content. But you’ve traded function for form in the new update, and it’s awful. I’ve used NPR (and listened for hours per day, literally) since it launched in 2009, and I couldn’t be more disappointed. I have both an iPhone and a Samsung for work, and now I have to use my work phone to listen because it still has the old version. The previous app made it easy to scroll through stories, but this one has flashy headlines and more pictures substituted for the content users want. All the stories I’d loaded in my playlist to listen on the way to work vanished overnight, and I can’t even create a playlist!! The FOUR favorite stations id saved and listened to frequently are gone and it’s cumbersome to find a live stream. It’s also irritating and cumbersome to find favorite programs. You guys have broken something that didn’t need fixing. Please, please ditch this version and give your loyal users back the previous, actually useful one.

by Thebigbigbeb

For three years now, NPR constantly plays the next segment at some random spot in the next segment. If you want to listen to All Things Considered or Morning Edition hands-free, it is absolutely impossible. You periodically have to grab your phone, unlock, open NPR , launch the player, and then scroll the finicky slider back to the beginning when the next segment inevitably starts at some random point. Often this random start is very close to the end of the next segment and you only have seconds before it is lost to the “already played” list. Love this app! NPR is beyond frustrating; especially while driving, doing the dishes, painting, showering, climbing a ladder, gardening, riding a bike, sweeping the floor… living life, etc. I have actually cracked my phone because I had to pull it out of my pocket to launch the transport slider to swipe a segment to the start. I have nearly avoided a few major driving accidents because I am constantly being forced to reach into my pocket to pull out my phone to correct the random random start of the next segment. It’s a weird and frustrating bug, and it’s been around for three years! I’m not the only one reporting this bug.

by Mlmyrick

And I liked it best until I found weekend edition throttled to 4 stories this morning. My phone is loaded with apps, some of which I use, and I’ve never rated an app before in my life, but this was like a final straw. I’ve used this app One and thoroughly disliked it before returning to NPR. I’ve suffered through the various iterations of NPR designed to make everyone switch away from it to this app One. And now this.

If I could get my favorite programs - especially morning and weekend edition - as podcasts that I could hear from my podcast app, I’d happily ditch both of these. I already listen to several other this app programs that way. These apps are both getting in the way of me enjoying this app, which I really like on the radio and contribute to financially through my local stations in South Carolina. Change developers or something, or else spend any money going toward app development on something that will meet the standards that this app usually sets. I’d be very willing to pay for an app that lets me download and listen to playlist content from this app. Or just make everything available as podcasts and be done with NPR stuff. It is not bringing this listener closer to this app.

by Icecreamguy2

First of all - every time I leave a review for NPR I get a “message from developer” which I can never read and then my review and rating disappear. Anyways, trying again again. I’m a sustaining member of my local station and listen almost exclusively via NPR. All i want to do is get up and listen to Morning Edition while I cook breakfast. App is incredibly slow to load, requires significant navigation even though I do the exact same thing every day (especially w weekend edition! Just give us a shortcut or a way to subscribe!), and because I don’t get wifi in my kitchen, i have to leave the phone in another room and play via Bluetooth speaker. So then when NPR starts arbitrarily playing a segment in the middle or stops playing for no reason have to leave the room to go press play again or start the segment from the beginning. Please, JUST RELEASE MORNING EDITION AND ATC AS PODCASTS!!! Omg i just cannot express how frustrating it is to use NPR!! I just want morning edition to download automatically like a podcast and then play straight through!! How hard is this!??! Please just quit it with the stupid middle management politics or whatever reason you have for not either improving NPR or releasing as a podcast and provide a useable and convenient way to listen to the news for those of us who would like to listen to shows on our own schedule. NPR does a disservice to this app

by Scslckje

I saw today’s article written about a black hole (Scientists Find Nearest-Known Black Hole, In Distressingly Fitting Metaphor by Colin Dwyer) and amidst the coronavirus panic and well really the entire fabric of reality breaking down, I found this article’s wry humor to be hilarious and I instinctively looked for that little transparent star that would allow me to save this magnificent little article so that one day in the indefinite future when we don’t have to worry about whatever in the world the next 2020 apocalyptic scenario is going to be (as you can see, I have already accepted that 2020 is going to continue to go downhill-now it's just a matter of "what" as opposed to "if"!), I can look back at this little article and laugh, reminiscing about how chaotic the supposed end times were. HOWEVER! My poor right thumb was left hovering and bewildered as its desired destination, that transparent five-pointed star, remained elusive even after a distressing scroll down and up the page. Please save the last shreds of my sanity and add the ability to favorite and save articles for later! It's the final bastion of normalcy left in this forsaken world!

by Tiff227

This is a pointless feature, totally inconsistent with normal app functionality, and is a privacy concern. Why even have this feature? It’s nice that you guys brought back a somewhat functional app but why do you insist on overthinking everything? The old this app app worked fine, this app One was deeply overthought (and overwrought) and barely functional and this new this app app brings in some some of that limited functionality. It seems like it was designed by someone reviewing the corporate description of this app - obsessive focus on repetitive news that generates local revenue for national this app, as if it were the 90s and we weren’t able to get a news summary immediately by swiping on our phone - rather than actually providing access to the rich diversity of content available throughout the this app network. It just doesn’t seem that hard to give people what they want and have clearly asked for for some time. It honestly seems like there are developers “guessing” at what users might want. Why not just ask them if it is so hard? Why waste all this time, money and waning good will creating limited functionality?

by DisneyDisciple

I enjoy NPR and use it daily; the playlist has some issues, the biggest of which is pretty clear: the handoff from one story to another. If you are listening to a story that is, say, 3:15 long, and the next item is, say 6:20 long, when NPR begins the next selection, it does not reset the “bookmark” (the point at which you are in the selection to which you are listening) so you begin listening to the new track at 3:15 in. It’s a nuisance to have to manually go back to the beginning of the track. Seems like a very easy fix. Also, adding a new selection to the playlist while you are listening to the playlist always creates a clear audible glitch, which varies from a brief pause, to playing a disorienting random snippet from one of the tracks for up to a couple of seconds. Also, NPR fails to properly interact with iOS: the Lock Screen interface is unpredictable (sometimes works sometimes not) and lacks the 15- and 30-second-skip features. Still a useful app; needs some fixes. When addressed I would change to 5 stars.

by Ktq999

I’m a big fan of this app and have enjoyed NPR. Coinciding with the latest release, however, NPR stopped playing all on demand stories in the playlist sequentially, and had to be advanced manually to the next story in the que, despite my selecting the “listen to all stories option.” The “play all stories option” continues to not work and after the end of one story must be advanced manually. This is particular annoying, and a departure from the previous editions. I have deleted NPR twice and reinstalled but NPR continues to stop after each story. Double clicking my headphones does not advance to the next story either. Therefore, when exercising, driving or other activities having to advance the story manually is a pain. Please fix. My other request would be the ability to download the stories, just like a podcast, so that they could be played when outside of good or no cellular reception.

by Not A Frequent Reviewer

I use NPR daily and often multiple times per day. It does the basics pretty well, but I wish it was smoother and a bit more flexible. I echo some of the suggestions I’ve seen posted. My main irritations are also about difficulty in sharing; the developer has responded about an option on the story page; I just know that from the item I’m listening to at the moment, there is no sharing option. For items that I really wanted to share, I have to find it on this app’s website and send that way — something I don’t take the time to do as often as I think to share something. Also, the Listen To All Stories function seems to cue for an ad/promo to be inserted in the story sequence, which is fine, but it interrupts the flow by either skipping the story that should play right after the ad, or just stopping together after the ad. I select Listen To All Stories when I don’t want to have to hover over my phone, so it’s annoying when I’m across the room or otherwise occupied and then have to go back to it (or just have silence) because once again the play has stopped or skipped. Fine to play the ad, not fine for it to derail the basic play-all function.

by VoiceOver User.

I should have known better than to go with the new this app app that replaced this app News. There was so much to love about it. Although I do Support my local this app Station, I also like to browse, including locally produced programs from other parts of the country, which are not carried by my local station. That was easy to do in the old app. I simply brought up the station, and chose an on-demand program. These shows were displayed alongside the live streams. In addition , I could create a Favorites list, and even add items to a playlist for later use. In the new version, all of these features are gone. Now, the only way to get on-demand material from other stations seems to involve changing one’s favorite station; and, even if you do that, you then have to go to a separate On-Demand tab to get such material, and there are fewer choices of podcasts and topics. For instance, on the old app, I could go to WUNC (not my local station), and listen to podcasts from The People’s Pharmacy. Now, even by making that station my favorite, I found very few choices—and The People’s Pharmacy wasn’t one of them. Then, I had to reset my favorite station; then, to get back to where I was (if it wasn’t my local station), I had to go to Recently Streamed, and _hope to find it there. I hope I will grow to like the new app better, but don’t count on it. The reason I even gave it 4 stars is that I’m a huge fan of this app.

by Octopüff

So I’m leaving my previous review at the bottom so people know what I’m talking about. I received a developer response asking me to provide them some more info, and I just kept forgetting to respond to it so I never actually gave them additional feedback. But the primary station and crashing issues I gripes about below seem to have been resolved. It’s still not the most intuitive interface, but now I like it better than the old app. It’s been working pretty reliably well for the past week or so. Not my fave app, but solid for my use (which is just listening to my local station in the AM while I get ready for work).

Newest version is crazy buggy. I’ve had to search for and set my primary station pretty much daily. Sometimes the search function decides not to work and I need to close and reopen NPR . Sometimes the whole deal just freezes and I need to close and reopen NPR .
Pausing causes it to crash. Dropping the signal causes it to crash. Navigating through NPR causes it to crash. Fix them bugs!!

by JDubman

The latest release is a train wreck. We live for the news and I even used to work for an this app affiliate, and the 4.0 update has destroyed our relationship with this app in our home. The old app was crashy, slow and quirky but functional. We love this app so much we put up with it. We used to listen constantly, curating our own playlist with a few taps on even a 5 year old phone and it worked fine. One day I hear cries from the shower, what happened to the this app app? I find out there's an update, saw some bad reviews, rushed to turn off automatic updates on my iPhone, but not in time. The fact that the old version is gone without warning and replaced with something missing the only meaningful feature of NPR is completely irresponsible. The new app seems to do basically one thing which is to stream some tiny subset of this app content in a predetermined order without the ability to decide in advance what I listen to while showering, driving, running, etc. This is torture after getting accustomed to the playlist feature for the last several years. I have read every review here and this is basically the consensus about the 4.0 app. I have searched for an alternative, to find nothing. I may write one myself as my next side project. Until then, goodbye this app, just when we need you most. I beg whoever is in charge to bring back the old app, immediately. Update: Just installed latest version and it crashed on startup. Deleted.

by Asteriskadonis

I used to use the this app app to listen to my favorite this app programs like Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday. As of a few days ago, this is no longer possible. For some reason, this app has disabled their own app, making it impossible for users to listen to these shows in their entirety. Instead, only four stories from each show are available, and the listener is directed to download a completely different app, this app One, if you want to hear the rest. Why, this app? Why would you do this to your listeners? Even if you do go along with this coercion and get the this app One app, it is still impossible to use it to listen to full episodes of shows like All Things Considered, Weekend Edition Sunday, etc. This is because this app One lacks a playlist function and only lets you play one story at a time before NPR forces you to listen to some other random show or podcast that you have no interest in. this app app team: please bring back the ability to listen to full episodes of our favorite shows on demand. Why would you do this to your listeners? No one is going to use the this app One app until you make it possible for us to listen to entire episodes. No one wants “curated” (i.e. random) news, especially if there is no full episode option. Until you fix that terrible this app One app, can you please restore the original this app app back to functionality so that your listeners can continue to enjoy our favorite shows?