TED Talks Reviews

I used to love listening to TED talks. I loved learning of new inventions, innovative and health beak-throughs and business ideas so I decided to download TEDTalks and I chose categories I THOUGHT would be pretty similar to my interests: technology, science, design, business, innovation and health.

All that popped up on my feed for days was a bunch of global warming, politics (all leftist views), racism topics, feminist topics and just 2-3 topics that seemed unpolitical until I clicked on them...and even those turned out to be liberal and leftist views. No longer interested! I get so sick of people virtue signaling and promoting themselves as self righteous people. I don’t need people to tell me we all have internal racism and we lack diversity when these TED talks clearly promote only one way of thinking. What a freaking disappointment!

I gave TEDTalks three stars only because it plays the videos without problems. But the search feature is the worst I’ve ever seen on any app. I wanted to find talks on ‘self trust’. Typing either of those words in varying combinations, including with a comma between, turned up two videos or mostly no results. Of course, typing in ‘trust’ results in about half of the entire Ted library. I literally have to use Google advanced search to find videos I want to watch in my Ted app. Sheesh!
By the way, when I did get a resul from my search in Ted app, the display was so tiny I had to use a magnifying glass to read them, and I’m using an iPad Pro. That lack of scaling in the display is ludicrous.
Additional input: Recently, every time I try to access TED videos through Facebook posts, I am asked to register or answer ‘two’ questions. So I’ve deleted TEDTalks . Why does TED need my private info to use their app? TED = Take Everyone’s Data

Beware! The Download feature does not work well! First, TEDTalks does NOT download the video or audio in the background on wifi so you have to make sure you keep TEDTalks open! Second (and even worse) when you click on "My Talks" then choose downloads, it will show your talk as being downloaded when in fact it isn't! (the talk has only started to download or is only partially downloaded). This means that you will consume a lot of unplanned bandwidth when you try to view the "downloaded" talk (which may cost you a lot of money) or you won't be able to access it all all if you don't have an internet connection. It's a poorly designed app. They should have a "pending download" section in "My Talks" and enable TEDTalks to download in the background when on Wifi. There should also be a progress bar when the talk is being downloaded.

I have been a Ted fan for at least 12 years. This is a Terrible user interface. You would think with “Technology” in their name, they would invest something in their product! I could go on and on, but my two most recent aggravations are (1) when in search mode you must “check the boxes” every time to select your favorites. There is NO functionality to “save” your search topics, so every time I fire up the iPad I need to re-do my searches. Unbelievable and totally frustrating that this program does not have a way to save searches on the topics I want to see. And (2), the “Trending” feature line typically has Ted talks that are 10 and 12 years old. Someone needs to inform these folks what a trend is!! And yes there is more (3) everything should “ALWAYS” be listed from “newest to oldest”. I don’t want to hear about information, news, technology, etc. that’s outdated unless I choose to do so. Really hate TEDTalks since they “updated” a couple years ago.

Picture-in-picture closes while audio playback continues. This doesn’t seem like an intentional feature.

Video player should be replaced with the stock iOS player. You’ve included no additional functionality using a custom UI, and it’s less responsive.

There is an occasional scrolling glitch I haven’t figured out how to replicate. The page jitters struggling to line up with the inertia of the gesture.
Scrolling performance is also extremely poor, lagging on long lists.

The only standalone feature that sets TEDTalks apart from the website is the ability to download media for offline listening. I don’t need this feature enough to put up with the rest of TEDTalks experience.

The presentation of categories minimizes discoverability. One alphabetized list that lags is not effective.
Switching bottom tabs is also extremely laggy.

Additionally there is an absence of
- transcripts
- speaker profile pages
- related links to learn more and/or participate in the topic of the video
- reading lists
- footnotes
- comments

I can see the negative space in-app where these items are listed on the website so I hope that they’re in the pipeline.

Hoping TEDTalks will change! I think there’s utility to providing more than a web app, but this ain’t it right now.

The poor rating is for the new app, that forces me to answer filtering questions and queues up videos to auto start after I finish a video. I have used the TED app since it came out on my first iPhone, years ago. What I most appreciated was the chaotic combination of topics that were always showing up, with no theme holding them together other than combining Technology, Entertainment, and Design. What I valued most was the juxtaposition of wildly differing topics — I don’t want filtering and categorization and I don’t want a TED account, I just want the flood of wildly different topics that characterized the experience in the past. Please provide a way to bypass the filter questions and categorized presentations and just go back to the timeline presentation of topics as they are added to the flow. On top of sticking questions I don’t want to answer in the flow of using TEDTalks , at a recent update it lost the results and made me answer them again. Bad programming producing a poor user experience. I was about to give two stars, since that is all TEDTalks should get, but it is hard to ignore the fact that the content is still very high quality.

I love TED. I really want to preface with that before I continue. I’m still going to use TEDTalks , because I love the concept of TED. Conversation, connection, knowledge, growth, all great things we need a lot more of. I usually watch them on my laptop, but I recently put it on my phone. One thing I hate, and it makes me scream curse words at TEDTalks, is the search section. I will literally put in the exact name of the TED talk I want to find, and it will tell me that there is nothing under that search. I have to go to my web browser, type in the TED talk name, and then open the link that takes me to that talk in TEDTalks . You guys are a multi billion dollar organization. Please fix your freaking search bar on your app.

App seems to work just fine. My problem is with the lack of diversity of ideas over the last 2-3 years which I LOVED Ted for in the past - learning something new or an idea I’ve never considered or even heard of from different perspectives.

But now, a lot of the narratives are all coming from what seems like the same person no matter what the topic. All very leftist leaning; socialist ideas = good, individual freedom = bad. Developed countries = bad. Race and gender identity good, individual character = bad.

Come on Ted, throw in some other perspectives. Challenge people to think outside of their box and not feed from the same one with people that think exactly alike.

I like the fact that you can still listen to the audio while TEDTalks is closed. However, the front page hasn’t updated since I downloaded TEDTalks a week ago. Same videos and categories, same recommendation — I mean this is like app 101 the home page should have new daily content to look at. I also agree with a reviewer below that I would prefer no or little categorization and to let the content flow into a beautiful chaos of ideas. I understand TED has to try and remain relevant within the problems and contexts of these crazy days, but what made TED special in the first place was its ability to transcend all of that and make its viewers view problems in a different perspective.

The atmosphere of TEDTalks is amazing, and I love the personalized content! However, TEDTalks fails to remove videos from my watch list after repeatedly trying to do so, and it sometimes duplicates videos after an attempt. Additionally, TEDTalks lags and freezes almost every time I use it. I don’t both going on it as often anymore and putting videos on my watch list because I know I won’t be able to get them off of it! If these were fixed, though, TEDTalks would be undeniably great!

Even with the updated version I can’t get the videos to download successfully for off-line viewing. I have a dozen or so videos supposedly downloaded in my downloads section, but when I am in airplane mode I cannot watch those videos. There’s also no indication regarding the progress of the download. After you click on the download video button, it just shows up in your downloads section. But there’s no indication how much is downloaded. And there’s no way to refresh the download or restart it.

We have a lot of this app courses offered for e-learning where I work and I’ve really enjoyed watching some speakers more than others. It would be great if there were options to not only be able to search by actual speaker or more than just a single word when typing into the search bar on TEDTalks and maybe only getting a small number of results with the exact word and have to try searching a different word to find the video you’re looking for.
It would also be nice if there was an option to create additional lists to save videos to for those of us who watch for both work, personal, and/or any other reason. That way you don’t have to search through all of the ones you might have added to your list to watch when you’re only looking for one that was saved for work.

It’s 94°F and the humidity is well over 90% today. But my task is painting my sons bedroom and I must get it done. this app are what’s making that possible. The last one was about the beauty and magnificence of birds and the urgent need to conserve them. Prior to that I was listening to several talks about urban architecture and how we can use it to make our world a better place. I give thanks to all the brilliant lion hearted people giving these this app and highly recommend them to anyone who needs a little lift to get through the difficult tasks of your day.

TED talks have literally changed my life. I love everything that TED is about and the work they are doing. Everybody should watch TED talks in their free time, there is so much to learn and that’s what we were created to do. Grow, learn, and improve / help society one day at a time. I pray and hope to work for them one day, furthering their mission statement that aligns so perfectly with everything I am about. I Love TED. If you want TEDTalks , download it. If you don’t, download it anyways and wait for the day when you do. Thank me later! xoxo juliasparks

I absolutely love listening to the wide variety of TED talks while I’m at work. Whether it’s inspiration, passion, motivation, learning, or exposure to a new view that I’m looking for, TED has it. The only problem is that I was using so much data! Well, no worries!! TED allows free downloads of not only audio but video. Hallelujah! The only thing is my phone sometimes freezes when I’m using TEDTalks , but it may just be since I recently updated my phone and not because of TEDTalks . Overall, highly recommended and so happy!

I briefly wish to commend TED Talks for having become a magnificent global forum for the exchange of ideas and ideals indispensable to humanity at this and all future stages of its profess and maturation.

The largest forward leaps in civilization on this planet have always been directly correlated with public information, education, illumination and inspiration.

TED Talks present an entirely contemporary means of providing that service to all by enlightening and stimulating the public sentiment, awareness and conviction by presenting individuals with the necessary access to factual realities, expert opinions, and seasoned wisdom in succinct, digested and digestible presentations of key points on the leading and most critical issues of the times.

As the inceptors and fashioners of the breakthrough documents that created and permitted modern democracy to exist, to progress and to thrive realized and emphatically proclaimed, the progress and stability of humanity is dependent on and the product of an informed and enlightened public.

Herein do we discover the preeminent value and serviceability of TED Talks in contributing to the ongoing provision of all these essentials to human survival, advancement and happiness.

I’m sure this review is - technically- supposed to be for TEDTalks itself. However, I’m having a hard time thinking of TEDTalks without the content. For me, TEDTalks works; it downloads fine, plays well, and is there whenever I want it. Four stars for that.

That said, the content gets eleven stars (on a scale of 1-5). There are so many fascinating ideas that I’ve been completely unaware of that I have to laugh at my own ignorance. Thanks, TED crew, for helping me see beyond.

After I retired five years ago, I enjoyed looking at TED daily for the variety of coverage. Sometimes I scanned my own interests art, architecture and design just to see what others were doing. I titled this these two areas of concern because I appreciated the thoughtful coverage. My grandson who is 21 challenged me to find a group to discuss TED ideas with. Beyond my partner and my church and book club groups. As a teacher I led Socratic discussion, teaching students how to voice their own understanding and listen to others, even if I had to do so during our lunch breaks. I worked with 3rd through 6th grade. TED talks have given me more insight into the importance of discussion and ways of facilitating it effectively. Thank you for the ideas, the vision, and the hope for our future.

TED should be broadcasted in every part of the world, free of charge. It should be a given right to have access to this information. PS: Love the notes you guys write when you push an update to TEDTalks store! Makes keeping the TED updated, makes me feel like you’re building an app for the users and followers and subscribers😄 (in comparison to Facebook which seems to only make an app for the masses 🙄) Keep up the good work! ❤️

It wasn’t until I became open minded. that I began to learn. These videos are awesome. I’ve recently been going through marital problems. My hope is I can take this information and use it in a positive constructive way in hopes to change the outcome. Although I do struggle with excepting the fact that some people are unwilling or cannot or do not have the ability to be open minded. Through watching these videos I have learned that my approach or delivery to the problem could be why I am misunderstood. So for now I will just forward the videos with the link hope that they take the time to watch them.

I miss the old app, I miss the drip and ripple, I can’t search/find playlists any more, and I tried to add a talk to my list, it said it did it, the plus turned to a check, then it turned back to a plus and did not go on my list. Did this numerous times, I finally just downloaded the talk to save it for later. Still love TED Talks, just miss the old app.

UPDATE

Got the latest version, I still cannot add talks to my list. The plus turns to a check then a couple seconds later it turns back into a plus. I really miss the old app, why mess with something that worked so well?

Love the TED app. However, in the last few months SEVERAL of the talks, and animated talks WILL NOT PLAY. I have tried to switch to a different wifi, I’ve tried using cellular data only - neither works. The only way I have found to work around this glitch is to DOWNLOAD the episode you want to watch/hear. This is a pain b/c it takes extra time and then the end user has to remember to go back and delete the download to free up memory space. What happened and how quickly can your IT dept. solve this? It would be greatly appreciated!!

I love TEDTalks because of the variety of videos on it and the surprise me feature which always brings me interesting videos I haven’t watched before. It also has a clean user interface and well developed search engine.

However, whenever I play my downloaded videos offline, I am able to play one but the next one does not play because of a playback error. Sometimes it plays once I restart my iPad, but most of the time it still does not work. Please fix this!

I love TED Talks. I just wish there was a bit more functionality for the iPad app because the iPad is my main device. For instance, TEDTalks doesn’t take advantage of split screen or have a floating window feature that allows me to multitask by taking notes. Also, more customization in terms of allowing the user to create their own playlists would be great.

Thanks for being TED, the world would be a lot less interesting without this platform.

I can’t get the download videos completed and play offline. Whenever I download it stops when the progress reach 99 percent and stopped. And nothing can do at this situation but the only way is need to clear and restart TEDTalks . Please take action for this. It’s not big a problem while I’m at home or staying in my town but it becomes inconvenient when I am on traveling where sometimes out of network connection. :-(

I love how TEDTalks is set up, and the content is incredible, but I seemed to have a problem downloading content. I would have like 15 talks downloaded in my list, but when I look again, I only have nine. Not only this, but several of my successfully downloaded talks that didn’t mysteriously disappear just didn’t play and ran into an error. Overall, while the content is very interesting, I had to take a star off for the downloading issue.

I love TED with a passion, it has helped me change so much in my life for the better. TEDTalks however does need some changes but the two are mutually exclusive as far as I’m concerned. I watch TED the most when I’m away from home and lately (I’ve downloaded the latest update) I’ve not been able to watch or listen to any of the talks. Please fix TEDTalks , TED is so inspirational! I only gave 4 stars because of how TEDTalks is behaving lately.