Kansas City Star News Reviews

KansasCityStarNews just started a number limit on how many articles you can read without paying. But they also have ads that stop you from seeing news without watching the ad first.
Hello.... pick one to make your money. Ads or subscription. But I’m not paying for a subscription when you have ads that pop up. This is common sense. My preference is to deal with the ads and not have to pay but there is no way on planet earth I would do pay you to watch your ads. Are you kidding me????

Give me my paper back! I closed KansasCityStarNews to make breakfast and when I re-opened it it was not in the same format. Awful. I don’t have time for this.

You can’t even get this right. I’m adding my comments to those above which popped up when I tried to write this review. The new app is horrible. Small print, too many ads that won’t go away and make the page jump, shut down, and may not even come back on to the right page. I hope the Star got KansasCityStarNews for free. Sure isn’t worth paying for.
And, when trying to call to give feedback and ask for help, we are sent to the Philippines!!!! No customer service at all. Today the phone numbers don’t work.

KansasCityStarNews may start but the documented feature related to the K C Star eEdition is always an adventure. Errors occur either in KansasCityStarNews trying to initiate the eEdition or when trying to access the eEdtion in Safari. Clearing cache and cookies in Safari does not always work. Power cycling the iPad does not work. Forget K C Star “customer support”. They may or may not reply to your problem, and IF there is a resolution, it could be days later. This does not merit any stars, but it is not possible to rate zero stars.

App has no way to find sports columnists and read their stuff. I don’t understand how that could be an issue.

Your response gave a link to your FAQ page which doesn’t answer my question. Lowered my review to one star.
Your list of articles doesn’t list the writer, and there isn’t a columnist section for sports, and you can’t search by a writer’s name. There isn’t any reason to keep your app on my phone. Deleting it and just using the website.

Updated KansasCityStarNews , there is nothing I like about the new format. It’s very very user unfriendly. I can understand readers wanting to tailor their news to suit their interests, but it shouldn’t be the default position to have to choose specific sections.
In addition, the page layout/format is inefficient compared to the previous version. Having to scroll down through numerous sections to find a specific section doesn’t make sense. Maybe there’s a whole preferred setup setting that I missed. I am really disappointed. Yes, I could simply read the digital version but the previous format was better and easier to navigate.

Since the update reading the paper on my iPad has gone from a joy to complete frustration. They said the update would result in less ads on screen, but now the full ad at the bottom has reappeared and cannot be removed. When you click on an article to read it there are ads throughout. You can no longer easily email an article or to a friend. Because you must now read the paper in a browser and have an ad at the bottom the real estate for the actual paper is substantially diminished. Using two fingers to resize does not work correctly. Double tapping to increase the size of an article often results in both resizing and bring the article up as a single tap should.

Don’t pay the subscription. I like the Star. I like learning about local news, politics, and KansasCityStarNews ’s formatting.
But I hate clickbait articles with only a few sentences and zero facts. I hate sensationalized news stories. I hate in-article ads and being forced to watch ads videos. So why would I want to pay for a subscription?

If you want to encourage readers to subscribe, make something that is different than every other news site. I’m deleting KansasCityStarNews now that a subscription is required

From a pretty good app, the update has made it just right up next to useless. It tells me I can’t read articles I’ve paid for, and there’s no clear way to sign in (The directions in the FAQ Don’t Work). It wanted me to rearrange sections all over again, and has no obvious way to access a dark mode as the previous version had. If you already have KansasCityStarNews , DO NOT UPDATE!!!!! If you don’t have it yet, wait for a functional version of KansasCityStarNews .

I realize hard copy newspapers have been replaced by e-versions for mainstream readership, but this e-version/app is awful. The Star no longer provides anywhere near the same amount of info or stories that previously appeared on a common basis in the print version (which in itself is also underwhelming). The majority of news are feature stories and very seldom is their current, up-to-date information or stories. It’s difficult to find specific information or topics, particularly in the sports section. I now leverage the St. Louis Tribune app more frequently to find information, which is disheartening.

Previous versions of KansasCityStarNews allowed the user to see a full page on the iPad screen. The revised app limits the zoom out to a half page. The full page view best simulated the look and feel of reading the paper edition. One could quickly scan the page for interesting articles. Now, one needs to scroll up and down on the page before swiping to see the next page. Please restore the ability to see a full page on the screen at once.

I really enjoy The Star’s content but for $15/month I expect an ad-free experience. The banner ad at the bottom of KansasCityStarNews is distracting and takes up too much real estate. The e-edition of the paper is the main reason I use KansasCityStarNews , but all KansasCityStarNews really provides is a link to the e-edition that opens in Safari with yet even more intrusive ads. It would be nice if the e-edition was contained within KansasCityStarNews itself.

The ads really are a shame because otherwise KansasCityStarNews is well designed compared to most other newspapers’ apps.

KansasCityStarNews covers the headlines but very often holds onto old news beyond it's expiration date. Recently articles covering the eclipse hung around on KansasCityStarNews for days after the moment had passed.
Also, the ads very often take over the article and the X to close the ad doesn't work. I have to tap it over and over to close the ad and continue reading my chosen article. Other than that, KansasCityStarNews works well and the paper is clearly organized.

I am pleased to report that since my last review that the speed to open from a notification to read the story has improved markedly. So, increasing my rating from 2 to 4 stars as a result. KansasCityStarNews could still be faster navigating within KansasCityStarNews . Also, the overall navigation itself is not the most user friendly which is why I am not giving it a 5th star.

Overall the KC Star has a very serviceable newspaper app. One feature that would be nice to add would be the ability to read stories when offline. The Wall Street Journal app, for instance, downloads the top stories in each section and they are available to read even when offline. I travel a lot for work and this would be a nice feature.

Please explain whether the new app of The Star currently has a search or a way to navigate to search for specific sections, articles, editions, etc. I cannot seem to be able to keyword search and navigate to news I want to read!

I use an Apple iPad, version 14.4. I recall being able to search using previous versions of the Star app. Thank you.

I love the content of the Star and KansasCityStarNews in general. No obnoxious and intrusive ads; the ads they have are small and unobtrusive. My complaint is that if I turn my phone to landscape, it causes my phone’s screen to glitch, freeze, and then shut KansasCityStarNews . As a paying subscriber, a problem like this should be fixable.

I prefer the e-star hat is a replica of the print version, probably because I grew up reading the print version of the paper. I very much like the convenience of reading the paper online, but there are times when it won't load and that's super frustrating.

It may sound like an over exaggeration but the star has the juiciest true stories, about common city folk, I’ve ever read. I purposefully read for 2 hours a day from about 24 different sources. But no news keeps my eyes wide open, and my mouth hanging open in shock, quite like the star.

Not sure if the star app is for you? Well, do you desire to read an article about a contractors services being rejected , so he threw hammer at the home owner that rejected him? Look no further than the star. Would you like to see an article that does a play by play, every single step of the way, about a car wreck? The star is here for you. Do you want to know about crappy city officials that are up to no good? Don’t worry, the star has all the details including every single f’ up that city official has ever done, and how much it cost tax payers.

My friends, You don’t get just one juicy article a day about the city. Instead you get a brand new list, full of stories, every single day with the star app.

In summary, I am addicted to the star. You should be too.

Living in Columbia, MO, a Blue island in a Red state, I am always encouraged with the Star and it’s thoughtful coverage of two red states. It gives me hope that we can overcome the White nationalist leanings of our current President. As a former history teacher, the Trump lies and fear mongering mimic the propaganda of the Nazi regime of another Dictator, Adolph Hitler.
I never understood why the German people fell so easily for the same lies and twisted ideas espoused by the Nazi Party and leaders.
I know now.
The Star must continue to print the truth. Do not let fear and lies overcome our country. Many have said this election may be the most important in our lives. I believe it will be.

Great paper online. Great sports coverage of our home teams since we live in Arizona we wouldn’t normally see any news or sports of our hometown. We both enjoy reading about KC as we often visit so we are kept informed of new restaurants and new things to do in KC. Wonderful downtown improvements, The Star covers all of this!

I like to read the replica version. This new version of KansasCityStarNews makes this frustrating to the point of being unusable. 1/3 of the screen is allocated to advertising, leaving the font so small on the paper to be unreadable. Choose fit to width and it is better, but still unreadable. Manually zoom in and the page turn icons disappear, forcing you to zoom back out to turn the page. Pages of the paper skip and you can’t read them at all.

I have struggled with KansasCityStarNews and what a pain it is. I tried downloading to read offline but the blob in the browser went away. However, I found that you can save the download in your browser to a file and open it in the free Adobe Reader app. Look for the file in recently saved in Adobe. Since the filename is the sam from day to day, you can overwrite yesterday’s paper and not end up with a bunch of files. No more lost connections, long waits for the next page, or blurry pages.

If I wanted to get my news in an Apple or Google format, that is where I will go. The purpose of a digital version of a local paper is so I can ‘read’ it rather than get a delivered paper. If I wanted to do the category scroll routine, it certainly wouldn’t be at a local paper. I go to the ‘newspaper’ version and read it, but what’s the point. You have over-evolved, go back while you still can and fire whomever made the decision to change.

They continue to charge me even after cancelling my account. I cancelled my account earlier this year over the phone. On the next pay cycle, they charged me for another three months (a $213 charge I did not authorize). I called & complained. During that conversation the customer service rep assured me that my account was now cancelled and that a refund for the erroneous charge would come within 2-3 weeks. It is now a month later, and I have not received my refund. I have emailed them with no response. So now I have been charged the money and not even received the product that money paid for. The customer service is abysmal. On both calls I made, no matter how many times I said I wanted to cancel, they responded with "okay, let me see if I can get you a better deal." On the second call, I discovered they didn't even have the correct address for me, which explains all the delivery problems I was having before. My experience with this company has been miserable.