Slate.com Reviews

by Practicalkats

I have had and enjoyed the slate app for probably about a year now. It’s a far better mobile reading experience than browser, despite some bugs and the fact that the entire backlog of content is too large for Slatecom . However, the most recent update has left me at the end of my rope. I have slate plus, and Slatecom does not remember that I have logged in. Annoying, but I use a password manager. What pushes this from annoyance to unacceptable is that in order to log back in (after it auto logs me out every time Slatecom closes), I have to uninstall and reinstall because the login page will not display correctly. To be clear, the slate plus login page will only load the first time I open it after a fresh installation. It will not load under any other circumstance. In practice, this means that I must uninstall and reinstall Slatecom every single day to read new articles (I read far more articles than the monthly free limit allows, hence purchasing slate plus). I admittedly have a decently old iPhone (iphone 7) but my iOS is up to date and I have never had this issue with other apps. I have not been able to find a way to contact Slatecom developers about this issue, but hopefully you will see this review and address this extraordinarily annoying problem.

by Yo Czari

I have been reading Slate since it began and finally gave in and purchased Slate+ this year because they started metering and tightening the amount of free reads. Maybe that makes me cheap, but I’m a school teacher and try to save pennies where I can. IMO the writing is not what is was 10 years ago, but it is still pretty strong on the whole and still feels indispensable to me.
BUT, I don’t know how they can sleep at night charging us almost $60 and giving us an app that is so legendarily dreadful. And the thing is: Slatecom has always been bad. They fix it for a while and then it breaks, again and again. When I wasn’t paying for it, I swallowed my complaints. But c’mon! I know they had a major loss of ad revenue since Covid, which lead to the tighter meter, but can you please allocate some resources to the tech side here? I have to sign in again, every time, for each new story, and the podcast play bar only appears halfway on my iPhone screen. And the podcast does not remember where you paused. And the podcast time codes are often completely unrelated to the actual concepts of time and space.
Ugh. I know I said it was indispensable, but after my subscription ends, I will learn to live without if improvements aren’t made.

by AlexIsAPodPerson

Is there any way to read Slate articles using Slatecom on my phone if I’m not a member of Slate Plus?

Right now, I am signed in on Slatecom , and every single article, once I’ve opened them, brings up the prompt to become a member of Slate Plus, not just the ones that have the “S+” symbol. I’ve tried opening the same articles using browsers on my laptop, and I have access to them there. Other people seem to be able to read a few articles for free before getting the prompt, but I haven’t figured out what I might need to change in order to get that.

If Slatecom is only for Slate Plus members, then that should be explicit at the beginning of the process.

by Diva0725

I’ve been a member of Slate for quite some time. When I first began listening to podcasts they’d shut off. Thinking it was my phone, I tried my iPad, with no better success. I was so frustrated, I began listening to podcasts with the commercials. Of course that led to even greater frustration as I was paying to NOT have the commercials. So I just stopped listening.
I might have stopped paying for Slate altogether, but that seems wrong as I like the articles and my knowledge of politics, as well as all things current, comes primarily from written word. But these podcasts are good. So I tried again, thinking surely, they’ve got this thing fixed. Yet now it seems worse, if that’s possible. I can maybe get 5 minutes before it shuts off. At home it’s annoying, but I can go back to Slatecom (which, by the way, completely closes out each time, requiring me to find the particular episode I want and begin again) to restart. When I’m driving, however, I’m stuck.
While I like the work Slate does, I am so very tempted to stop my subscription. I think after 3 plus years, I’ve received little value but shown support. So please fix this thing or I’m gone

by Mobjack11

I enjoy(ed) the Slate app very much-but since they canceled Mike Pesca’s podcast, The Gist, I have lost faith in the editorial decisions that are taking place at this media organization. For me, The Gist was absolutely the best daily podcast out there, offering a truly balanced look at the political and social concerns of our country at this time.
I have never had any reply to my queries about why the show has been censored, nor have I found any articles about it on their site. I am extremely disappointed and without further information I simply cannot place any trust in the articles or even other podcasts that form a part of their conglomerate. I fully understand that my one small voice means nothing to them, but it is still leaves me feeling bad, which is simply not something I need to be reminded of each time I open Slatecom . I will probably hold out just a bit longer to see if the podcast returns, or to get definitive information about why he was pulled, but then for my own well-being I need to delete Slate from my news feed and move on. It’s a strange world we live in to be sure.

by Ddanneck

Slate is amazing and their reporting is top notch. But this is an app review and Slatecom is a glitchy mess.

It often crashes when returning to the front page after reading a single article. Sometimes it gets stuck displaying the same set of articles for hours or days at a time (right now it shows the same article at the top of feed from first thing yesterday morning, even though I’m reading a newer article online right now). One time everything displayed in italics for a couple of days for no apparent reason. Sometimes when scrolling through an article it accidentally registers a side swipe and switches to the next article in sequence. Scrolling is choppy even at the best of times. I’ve taken to reading on Safari instead, which is crazy because I’m always wishing my news sources had their own dedicated apps (looking at you Vox).

Slate, it’s a great thing that you have an app and I haven’t deleted you yet, but please work out the bugs!

by Leahu417

I really value Slate, and I pay for Slate Plus. On Slatecom , I am consistently logged out for unknown reasons, and then when I press the “sign in” link, it brings up an utterly blank pop up. So even though I’m paying premium, I pretty regularly cannot log in using Slatecom to view what I pay for. I’ve checked multiple times to make sure Slatecom is updated, so I guess I’m just dealing with the best that it can be?

One more weird thing: even when I am logged in, sometimes I open Slatecom , and the same article from summer 2020 about age 35 being a fertility cliff is at the top of “recent” for like 2 seconds. It disappears, but seriously?? It’s not especially triggering for me, but as a woman of a certain age, I def know people it could be triggering for. And why is this even happening- an old article at the top like that that disappears? Has been happening for *months*.
Otherwise, the UI design is great. Idk why the functionality is so poor.

by $/$:&@/-$

I’ve been a fan of Slate’s content for many years and I’ve thought of them as an essential voice in the American media landscape, so when they started Slate Plus, I signed on and downloaded their app. Prior to that I had just used Apple podcasts. Their app is very weak, to the point where it significantly degrades my enjoyment of their content. It does not effectively attach to the native services of the iOS operating system, so when it’s playing audio and you want to switch to playing music, the Slate audio does not stop. Similarly, if you pause it and then unpause it using external audio controls, via Bluetooth, it doesn’t restart. Now, for the last two weeks in a row, my FAVORITE podcast of all, the Political Gabfest keeps pausing itself every two minutes or so and has to be restarted manually, which requires unlocking the phone and navigating down two levels in the menu structure (again, it does not play well with iOS). So much for listening to it while you cook dinner. The overall performance of Slatecom is very slow and it does not support downloading podcasts in advance so you can listen to them offline. The fact that I’ve had to go back to Apple’s lackluster podcast app would tell you my standards for ease of use are low, but Slate’s app doesn’t meet them.

by Kakissel

I enjoy Slate. But Slatecom is janky as heck. You can now read comments in dark mode… but you can’t read a comment you’re typing. Articles that are lists of recommendations for items to buy — the linked items just don’t show up, so you get a set of reviews without any indication of the items being reviewed — that’s been the case for years. And for the past three days now, every single piece of text in Slatecom has been italicized. Headlines, bylines, subheads, body text. (Guessing someone forgot to close an italics tag in the CSS for Slatecom .) Plus, Slatecom crashes constantly. Always has.

It seems like Slatecom just isn’t a priority for Slate, never has been and never will be. It’s frustrating.

by Drangundsturm

As a Slate Plus subscriber I have to say Slatecom ’s search function undermines any positives Slatecom has. First they hide it. Perhaps they’re hiding their shame. Second when you try and use it, the second you start typingWhat you’re typing disappears and it starts guessing what do you mean based upon your hidden characters. Third it doesn’t work particularly well. Fourth once you’re done searching the hamburger is gone so you can’t go anywhere but to one of the (crappy) search results without closing Slatecom entirely and reopening it. The only conclusion I can come to is that they don’t want you to search. You’re better off not using Slatecom at all and instead using the Google app.

by Euphorbia Monstrose

The login problems are back in this version, and it’s reeeeeeallly annoying. Why won’t you fix Slatecom ? You are losing paying subscribers. Not only do I have to disable my VPN to log in on my phone, doing the same on my ipad is not allowing me to log in - the purple page that comes up with the ‘login’ or ‘restore purchases’ option just sits there, unclickable. This is AWFUL. Fix it.

—— previous review
Ugh. Every time there’s an update I am foolishly hopeful you will have fixed issues with this goldurn app. I still have issues with login not working (periodically getting logged out and not being able to logs back in) and with dark mode not allowing me to view the comments I’m typing as I’m typing them. Is this really all that hard? I do not have this issue with any other app. At all. Ever. Like, not even once. Sincerely, Slate Plus Subscriber Despite Crankiness

by Chicago Guy 444

I *love* Slate, and don’t know why their app has had these glaring issues for this long:

1. It’s one of only a couple apps on my phone that crashes—and it crashes often. Slatecom just dies and closes, generally over and over.
2. When an article has an embedded tweet with an embedded video, I believe it’s intended for you to play the video right there, but it doesn’t play—you have to switch over to the Twitter app to play the video.
3. Some articles don’t show at all in Slatecom (!), or are missing the primary info/images. Two regular examples are Strategist articles with lists of recommendations, or “here’s what the smartest people on both sides are tweeting” articles, during debates.
4. After a recent update, *all text* (headlines, sub heads, and body text) is weirdly in italics. And the sub headers are weirdly clipped, so the top edges of the letters are all missing. It’s weird.

Like I said, Slate is a wonderful website. These are specifically issues with Slatecom . Slatecom has had the first three issues for years, in my experience.

by Historydoll

I like Slate’s content very much, and I’m a Slate Plus member, but Slatecom is practically unusable. I used to read Slate via my RSS reader, but recently that became impossible: Slate was requiring a separate sign-in which it often wouldn’t accept. So I switched to Slatecom . It is equally frustrating. I’m signed in, but it seems to have trouble remembering that, especially when I try to switch to an article referenced in another article. At that point it wants me to sign in again, and doesn’t always accept the signin. Plus the search function is all but non-existent: try finding the News Quiz, which doesn’t seem to show up by itself. Finally, there are times when Slatecom just freezes completely. PLEASE FIX Slatecom .

by Hansisgreat

I very much enjoy Slate’s journalism, but Slatecom is a complete gutterball. I paid to join Slate Plus because they promised Slatecom would be free of advertising and I’d have access to exclusive content. The problem is Slatecom doesn’t work, I’m unable to log in, so I’m still seeing ads and locked out of the Plus content. I wrote several times to tech support, and an agent told Zoe told me essentially nothing can be done and I have to live without the added content I paid for. Every time I opened Slatecom I felt like a sucker who’d been cheated and then dismissed. I’ve since deleted Slatecom .

by Farewell My Friend

I enjoy reading Slate very much. Sadly I am going to disable Slatecom because you won’t let me read it unless I pay. It started with Slate+ being the gateway to much of Dear Prudence and ended today when you gave me notice I had read all the free articles I could without subscribing and you shut me off. My question is: if I need to pay to read, what do you do with all the advertising dollars you must generate because there are ads everywhere? Just like many other current sources, I’m asked to pay and then wade through many, many ads to find the pieces of the article. I’m not paying them either. And I’m not paying to play games, nor do I pay to watch cable TV for $150 a month and still put up with ads everywhere. It just bothers me about you more than the others because I enjoy Slate—your writers are fantastic, the content is always interesting and compelling, and the satire suits me perfectly. I even buy things from some of the advertisers paying you to be present everywhere in Slate. It’s a shame that now you have closed the door to me unless I pay, too.

by 6091j

There was a time when slate was number one for really really smart people thoughtfully commenting on the issues of the day in a way no one else was. Now much of the time it feels like ia bunch of (still) smart people shouting out ideological platitudes with no room for either dissent or any thoughtful disagreement. It’s definitely a watered down version of its former self, still somewhat readable, but only occasionally informative or interesting. Mike Pesca is presumably gone, which is a huge loss. There’s still Jordan Weissman, Christina Cautericci, the whole Political Gabfest and others to look forward to, but if I’m being honest,Slate’s not the go to it once was.

by MClaireBarr

Most of the way I consume Slate is through Slatecom but it’s been a problem from the beginning, crashes more than other apps, drains my battery. I’m not sure what the difference is with this from others but it’s frustrating to use because of these issues. I want to spend more time reading the content and I’d like to become a plus member but I just can’t spend much time on Slatecom because of the frequent crashes so I can’t justify the expense if I can’t spend more than a few minutes at a time on Slatecom .

by Fran.d

Login issues finally resolved but still find that Slatecom is slow to load and a bit quirky (ie loads its own article links into a web browser). However, Slate content is abundant and high quality.

——
Log-in simply does not work anymore. Constantly kicked out even right after I’ve logged in. app is also slow to load and glitchy. Not a great way to treat subscribers. Have given up on app and using mobile web for now.

by Philoscifi

Please mark which articles are audio only (podcasts) with an icon, similar to the way you mark the content that is Slate Plus.

I really enjoy Slate’ writing and mix of subject matter. The mobile app is solid and one of my go-to apps. Unfortunately, I don’t normally have the opportunity to listen to your audio content. I often click through an intriguing title in your mobile app only to find the content I had hoped to read is audio.

I wish I could listen to all of your trenchant analysis, but I can only read it. Please help me know which is which before I click through. Thanks for considering my suggestion.

by Brn Lovr

I have loved slate and have been a plus member for years. Recently I am unable to read any articles as a paywall comes up, even though I should be signed in. I can’t even hit the link to sign in on this wall as the link doesn’t work.
I have emailed the company and their only answer is that they know this is a problem but have no idea if or when it will be fixed.
Sorry. I will cancel that membership now. Geez, get your act together!! Higher some new tech people. How many people will you loose over this???

by Jessjensen

I paid for a subscription so that I could access more content from my favorite shows—some of which are not new. there does not appear to have a search function, nor a menu of podcasts. the daily feed slate app is a nightmare of information overload with no way to personally tailor to my interests. as a previous user said, when you entice your listeners with extra features and then the features are missing or impossible to access, you end up alienating your biggest fans.

by Debbyjr

Despite emails to their customer service team detailing Slatecom ’s instability (crashes without fail 2 minutes into any podcast) and other issues, and prompt responses reassuring me they’re looking into it, two months later the same problems exist. I believe wholeheartedly in paying for great work, and want to continue supporting it here, but unfortunately I will be canceling my subscription because I don’t get what I pay for (and haven’t for going on 5 months)!

by Chikitowonga

Update: still bad! How is it possible that Slatecom is released over and over again with bugs. I’m trying to read an article and about 10 seconds after I start, Slatecom crashes. Over and over again. This is not unusual at all. Why is this so hard for you? Other news and magazine apps do not act this way.

Why is the Slate app so consistently bad? I enjoy the content when I can get to it. It crashes constantly. The videos don’t play. The links don’t work. When links refer to another Slate article, the link doesn’t just open the article in Slatecom , but instead opens this sort of browser window within Slatecom . It’s strange. Update after update I hope these issues will be fixed and they never are.

by TomW2015A

Slatecom used to be better. Ad-free podcasts used to not play ads. And it didn’t used to crash as often as it does now. I’m at the point where I might stop being a Slate Plus member because of how bad Slatecom is. I really like Slate content, but they are making it difficult to easily access it so what’s the point?

Latest version (5.3.17) crashes every time I open it. I’ve tried restarting Slatecom . And I’ve tried restarting my phone. I’ll probably delete it and reinstall it next, but I’m out of patience at the moment.

by Clare-Dragonfly

What’s the point of having an app for Slate when Slate links—even within the Slate app itself—do not open in the Slate app? If I’m logged in to Slate Plus in Slatecom , and I see a podcast that I want to subscribe to, I should not have to log in again, then scroll around in several places in order to find my podcast link. Slate seems to want us to listen to podcasts within Slatecom , but that just isn’t how I prefer to listen. Two stars instead of one because it is a better reading experience in Slatecom than in my phone browser, if I can find the article I want to read.

by PhlashPhlash

For quite a while Slatecom just burns through battery and makes the phone hot.

And it takes ages to load up articles and when you scroll to the bottom of Recent it loads up saved ones instead...

I read Slate relentlessly but Slatecom is pretty much my worst mobile experience. These days I fly through articles, save them, then put my phone on airplane mode and read the saved articles. Which is a ridiculous thing to have to do...

by D-n-w

I read the articles on the recent page and scroll down until I see ones I’ve already read. HOWEVER quite frequently stories that weren’t there before are now shuffled in between ones I’ve already read. I end up missing articles that I would have read. I have noticed that articles are posted hours before the time stamp on the article. How that works and why it’s done I don’t know. Please stop moving things around.

by AmberVasquez

for the love of all that is holy please fix the search feature!! I’m in UX and it drives me absolutely nuts that seemingly no one on the QA team (please say someone IS QAing Slatecom!!) has caught that search is a complete black hole dead end that the user is unable to back out of without quitting and restarting Slatecom .

If someone can fix this issue overall it’s a great app :)

by Diegovela1

Having paid for slate plus to go commercial free, I get one podcast without obvious commercials and other podcasts with the very commercials that I sought to avoid. Slate provides excellent content and an excellent, informed group of podcasters. I suppose that I could use my time to resolve the commercials issue; but I have to work to afford the subscription.

by HowGreenThouArt

I subscribe to Slate plus, and the only thing in my Slate plus feed seems to be an advice column. I don’t care about advice, where are my premium podcasts? I use the iPhone X. I subscribed to sleep plus soley for Virginia Heffernan and Trumpcast. I cannot find it in Slate plus.

by AlisonLakeland

Well-written and well-researched, topically relevant articles. Best editorial writing, and always enjoy the features and investigative reporting. I could spend many hours listening to the podcasts. All well done. Worth more than the subscription for Slate +. I wouldn’t be without my failing fix of Slate reading.