The Boston Globe ePaper Reviews

“Words can't describe just how bad TheBostonGlobeePaper is. Downloads get hung up so that one can be waiting days for issues that never show up. The Globe should be embarrassed that it's name is associated with this piece of junk. Don't buy it.”

I wrote the above review several years ago and have been assured by the Globe that TheBostonGlobeePaper will be improved. Now, two years later, nothing has changed, and it’s still a pig. More often than not, the paper’s already slow down-load never finishes, and I say the hell with it, and never get to read the paper. How the Globe allows this to happen is incomprehensible.

Ok, it’s September, 2018, two years after I wrote the above reviews. The new app is out, and I find it much improved. In fact, I’m now reading the Globe again. The only downside is a somewhat inconsistent page turning when I swipe left, but that may be my technique. It took a while but the Globe May have mended its ways.

I get that some people like this faux paper layout of TheBostonGlobeePaper but really it is cumbersome for most users and lags in comparison to the NYT, WSJ and the WashPo. Having to decide whether to download an edition or not as the first pop up when coming to TheBostonGlobeePaper is annoying and wastes time. Clicking into a story causes it to go in a non mobile friendly layout where the pictures do not flow well with the story. It is also difficult to scroll from story to story, rather one has to flip through each page of the paper like it is a physical paper. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that most mobile readers do not need to replicate the flow of a physical paper in order to appreciate the stories.
I am going to unsubscribe to the Globe because I primarily read my news on mobile and the experience is just disappointing and frustrating. Please modernize TheBostonGlobeePaper and ditch the physical paper replication.

The positive is that the format of the Globe’s e-paper remains. It’s the one reason we subscribe. And it took a few years for the Globe to provide a stable, easy to use and read digital version on an iPad. And they RUIN it with the latest update that adds ANNOYING pop up bars that you need to tap somewhere on your tablet to remove EXCEPT that tapping on an iPad brings up any article that you’re not remotely interested in…so you tap on the expanded article to get rid of that which brings back the stupid bars! ALL I WISH TO DO IS READ THE NEWSPAPER…I assume this update is a less expensive digital product for the Globe…well, if they lose customers because of it, may be better if they just bring back the former digital product.

The look of the new version is improved but is still painful, although improved, to navigate. I do the crossword puzzle and this has gotten worse from the previous version, which was still crude. I now have to screenshot, crop, then go to photos. The previous version would sometimes let you save the puzzle to photos directly (but not always) but that doesn’t work at all now. Just opens a blank screen now and returns you to page one of the paper when you try to go back. Very frustrating. The Globe web based crossword app is awful. Wall Street Journal has a very good puzzle interface built in - if you are looking for a model.

Not a new issue but has always been a problem. I’ve had a subscription on and off for years. When I touch an article to open it up the problem begins. As I scroll/swipe through the article it suddenly jumps back to the top of the page, over and over. I’ve asked others if they have this problem and no one has said yes. I read on my iPhone and iPad and this happens on both devices. If there is a solution for this I would like to know.
Thanks.

Update: New app is vastly improved. Thanks for listening, Mr. Henry. How do you delete previously read old editions? Btw - Alex Cora is a nice upgrade, too!

Up at five no e-paper yet again. Writing this at 6:15 still no e-paper. Did the usual delete and reinstall of app - still no luck. Yesterday app crashed froze my iPad and caused me to do yet another delete and re-install to get paper. Oh, if only I could get the hours of my life back that I've spent messing with the worst app I have ever used. Please Mr. Henry, think about your customers and their experience!

TheBostonGlobeePaper was recently updated and is so much better than before. Your place on a page is remembered when you swipe between pages, TheBostonGlobeePaper seems less sensitive to accidental taps (which can open the article in a new view), and that article view is easier to exit if you accidentally tap it. Navigation controls are also better than before.

I would have rated the old version one to two stars. This is not perfect, but much, much better.

The new app that appeared in mid-August 2018 is hugely improved. It's now the best newspaper app that I'm aware of.

In the past the Globe had two big advantages: it looked on the screen the way it does on paper, and the whole edition downloaded once, so that it could be read offline. But navigating the pages was often a chore, especially on my slower 3rd generation iPad.

Somehow all those problems have been fixed. Now it's a breeze, easier than paper.

I thought the previous e paper addition was bad but I think August 2018 new improved so called e edition is totally horrible. Everything about it is bad especially for people like me who are visually challenged. Before at least one could read paper in large type. Now all you have really bad zoom capacity which is not only in adequate but with the slightest touch crashes. It is in grey type, the menu is unreadable in very smallwith no capacity to increase it. Is The Globelll trying to get rid of subscribers?I have subscribed to The Globe for 30 years and I'm now considering having to cancel my subscription which I have admired and values. Please fix this mess!

There’s all that room across the top, yet the icons are grouped together, making it far too easy to hit the wrong icon.

Do that and this will be a real improvement over the last version.

Though I will never understand why you don’t let readers jump from the front page to the inside page to follow a story. Instead who have to go to that one page UI. Following links seems a natural online viewing mode that you could mimic in TheBostonGlobeePaper.

The recent update of the online version of the Globe is pathetic. It had made the downloading and reading the paper more complicated and time consuming than it was before. For the most expensive paper around they should have done a much better job than what they did. I downloaded the San Jose Mercury News in about 4 minutes this morning and the Globe took a couple of hours on the same internet. And even when it has been downloaded you still have to redownload each page to read it. I would and should have given a Zero or a negative rating it is so ridiculous.

Gone is the easy menu in the upper right hand corner, which has been replaced by an overly complicated bottom of the page menu bar that is really buggy. You can no longer easily navigate around the paper, you have to bring up the menu bar and select the section or article BUT if you leave the paper format and then try navigating back to the front page TheBostonGlobeePaper closes. The upper right menu was simple and effective this overly complicated lower menu tosses you out of TheBostonGlobeePaper . It was simple now it is annoying.

TheBostonGlobeePaper is basically fine so far but the article view is hard to read on bigger screens. Can you add some margins or, even better, allow to customize text width? It would also be nice if the font size would be remembered so I don’t have to adjust it for every article. Perhaps both of those could be customizable in persistent settings?

Even after the many versions, the implementation is still a mess. Links that are supposed to give you a “pageview” so you can read the whole article instead of having to navigate the page jump frequently don’t work in a particular issue. And, all too frequently, the issue will simply not load and you have to keep trying hour after hour of the day to even get your newspaper.

One would think that after the many, many poor customer reviews and the many, many negative feedback directed to the Globe by email and phone calls, that the powers that be would have taken the lead in making improvements to TheBostonGlobeePaper. Not having done so after all this time is proof they do not care what their customers have to say. Subscriptions to other newspapers offer their readers the ease one would expect. The Boston Globe simply doesn’t care.

The new epaper app is a fail. It hangs up when loading and is difficult to navigate. I really prefer the epaper format as I can browse the articles as opposed to the typical electronic paper where you have to look for things. I have been waiting for two days to get a workable paper as TheBostonGlobeePaper crashes as soon as it opens. None of the controls or settings operate and the paper never arrives.

Great to read paper page by page, but when you open an article the window is completely unstable. Even touching the article can clear it. You can’t switch to another app and come back to read the rest. Why can’t the Globe find a developer who can make this concept work?

After downloading an edition I’d like to be able to take my iPad elsewhere to read it off line. Before allowing me to read the paper TheBostonGlobeePaper insists on refreshing the already downloaded edition which it cannot do when off line. In this context What is the point of downloading? Why must it refresh a static edition?

From a long time reader (moved to Boston in the 80's) - took a little while, but the latest app update addressed all the issues that I'd had complaints about - I'm back to enjoying the experience of "curling up with the paper" - thank you very much!

The new update was harder to use until, a couple of days later, it stopped working at all. It would not load and the screen froze. A note to tech support resulted in a request to “be patient” as they knew about the issue and were “working on it.”
With newspapers in such peril it’s a shame they keep shooting themselves in the foot.
I agree. What was wrong with the previous version? At least I could read the paper!

Glitchy app for sure, but it’s great for my daily commute on the T - every morning, my phone has spotty internet access for about 15 minutes underground. TheBostonGlobeePaper enables me to download today’s paper ahead of time so I can read the Globe regardless of having an internet connection.

Why did TheBostonGlobeePaper regress and lose the audio function. I once found this function quite useful and I now miss it very much. It was a huge timesaver listening to articles while I was working out or other activities when I’m unable to look at my phone. Please restore this function and get TheBostonGlobeePaper ’s progress at least going forward and not backwards.

For literally every single app that has articles, including the normal Globe app, when you turn off your phone while reading an article, and then you go back to the article it saves your spot in the article so you don’t have to start over. While this may not seem like a big deal, it makes TheBostonGlobeePaper close to unusable and shouldn’t take too much effort to fix.

A complete redesign and now the thing doesn’t work at all. Says I’m in “offline mode”, even though all other apps can see the internet, then eventually gives up and suggests a restart. Which yields the same results. Jeeze. A couple of high school kids with a half-case of Jolt could probably rewrite this disaster overnight, but in the meantime I’m stuck.

Why doesn’t TheBostonGlobeePaper include the always-entertaining readers’ comments? It’s a strange and very annoying omission.