Variety Reviews

by Doren Sean Michael

Variety states there are real-time new alert push notifications you can turn on via the settings menu. This is 100% false. There is absolutely no way to do this. There is actual absolutely no alert feature at all. I’ve emailed support 5 times with no response, so I’ve decided to leave a review to inform others that are expecting this feature. If I’m incorrect, please reply to this review with instructions on how this can be done & I will revise the content. Below is what they state, but the feature is completely nonexistent. “REAL-TIME NEWS ALERTS: Keep up with breaking stories as they happen with push notifications, easily toggled on or off in Variety settings menu. “ In fact the screenshots show a “bell” icon next to the “gear” icon, which does not exist in the actual app. Please respond with how to active the real-time news alerts. Please. Thank you.

by SteveHC

A bizarre app in that it does not seem to allow linkage/login to “print + digital” this app subscription accounts, only this app subscriptions made via the Apple app store - a ridiculous limitation resulting in inability of direct (Penske) this app subscribers to access the “Issues” feature.

by Havilos

To rate Variety with one star is giving it way too much. The ads are so annoying and the interface constantly crashes and restarts. I literary hate Variety. It is a torture to access it due to its mediocre interface.

by Kaycie.jackson

Variety needs a complete redo. I can’t believe they decided this was a good setup. There is no search option. There is absolutely no way for subscribers to view the magazine digitally on Variety like you can with literally any other magazine out there. I don’t find Variety user friendly whatsoever. PLEASE update it!

by Kuo1430

I simply can’t understand why Variety would be redesigned to just have one general feed without any option to read by topic (TV, Film, Digital, Business, etc.). As someone who works in the media industry and reads this app daily, it’s incredibly sad and I have deleted Variety from my phone.

Instead, I have to use my mobile browser to read articles from the web page.

This is literally the first app review I have ever written but this UI/UX is so poor that I felt compelled to do so. Whoever is the CTO should immediately implement changes - I would imagine app engagement has totally collapsed. This is digital media 101 and calls into question this app as a leading player in media itself.

by Auntylee

I wish could go back to the old app. Scrolling through latest headlines, Separate tabs for reviews, television and film etc. Now you just read story after story without a choice. And it takes forever to load. I’ll be deleting this shortly and will get my news elsewhere.

by ShhDragon

I’ve never once had a link pointing to multimedia content work. I’ve tried for years while using each then-latest iPhone. App doesn’t refresh content predictably or rapidly. Never has. Never able to find where I left off when returning to an article left open.

by ZanteSigma

After installing message popped up:
“Notice
Doesn’t have OneTrust data to show Banner user interface. Please fetch OneTrust data first.”
What the heck is that! Can some one please explain?!—thanks. Rating reflects difficulty to run Variety . I’m a this app reader and would like to be able to use Variety .

by Dobispr

I couldn’t finish an article because the ads kept restructuring the page as they loaded, until the page goes dark and I have to reload it and start over.

by Patisnotfat

I’ve rarely been so let down by an app redesign. this app used to be the only news app that properly functioned for offline reading - once refreshed the latest news downloaded automatically, everything would load. Now nothing is automatic and stories take forever to load. It’s now a worse version of every other junky news app. So sad to see an essential part of my commute gone.

by Spby33

Not sure why this app bothers to publish articles through Variety. It’s unusable. It’s slow to load simple TEXT. When it does, it lasts for about 4 seconds then goes blank. My iphone actually heats up when trying to handle the instability of Variety.

There are literally hundreds of news-based apps that work great. Is it really that hard for this app to get this together? If not, they deserve to go extinct.

by Aebroom

Even after the most recent update, Variety still struggles to function. Many articles disappear in the middle of reading them, leaving you with a blank white screen. Hyperlinks lead to nowhere. Everything is incredibly slow, and pages constantly reformat as you’re trying to read. The list goes on.
Coming from the premier source of entertainment news, I’m surprised how terrible Variety is. Please get it together, this app. You have the content you just need a usable interface!

by Sunnyside Down

Just upgraded from the not very good older version. Endless scrolling to get to all the headlines. No longer able to look for news in a particular section — look at all the news or none. The articles used to be more readable in old app than on the awful website, but this is now web based in app reading experience with slow load times and an all around awful reading experience. The this app app has long been awful, and this is just a new this app of bad. Wish I could go back to the older version for pre-iOS 10 that was a wee bit less bad than this.

by SMRnyc

Always loved the this app app but not a fan of the new look/format. Used to be able to see snapshots of 10 or so top stories and now, with larger previews, you can only see 1 or 2 when you first open Variety . Much more difficult to get a quick look at stories and decide which ones you want to read more about.

by Exeverywhere

Love the content but Variety experience is chronically poor and that drags the rating from 5 to 2. It is simply very buggy. Suspect it is due to ad media not loading properly which is sloppy and poorly tested development. Variety just needs to do 2 things, deliver content and deliver ads, gets neither done. Fed up.

by Uncle Marcus

Variety needs lots of work, I’ll start with the fact that if you try to share a story to Facebook or Twitter, it takes you to a page that tells you to download them and there is no way yo tell it you already have them. I see this a lot on apps on the iPhone. Frankly it’s just plain stupid to not have Variety go straight to the Facebook or Twitter app and Apple should be enforcing this.

by Indexicality

The most deal breaking aspect of Variety for me is how rapidly it drains the battery of my phone, which points to the fact of how badly optimized Variety is for iPhone. I love having a this app app on my phone, but not if it’ll sap one per cent of my battery per min. Please fix this.

by Bryanwilson

The main attraction of the this app app is to be able to read this app. And that works just fine.

But nothing else works. You can’t share, videos never work, photos rarely load, and the galleries tab has never worked. Every time I click it..the apps crashes and goes back to my home screen.

Also...they should bring back comment sections.

by NJMC2

Can’t understand why Variety doesn’t have a search window so you can look up names and older articles. There’s also no way of accessing your account info if you’re a this app subscriber. Please update this!!

by Rox Stuff

Still the grand dame of E-news

by JackieO823

Variety needs to be upgraded. Worst app on my phone. If it’s not upgraded soon I will be deleting it. The gallery section is even blank.