Medium: Read & Write Stories Reviews

by Eliot 3553676

This is one of the worst apps I’ve ever used, not in the sense that it often breaks or glitches or fails, but rather in that the design decisions that have been made are so ludicrously anti-user that it at times feels deliberately malicious. You get a notification that several people have commented on your post. Would you like to see those comments? Well just click that notification and it will take you there. I’m sorry, that’s how it SHOULD work. How it does work is as follows: you tap the notification and it takes you to a screen displaying the different people who have responded. If you click on any of those icons, you will be taken not to that comment but to that person’s profile page. Yup. There’s all kinds of just fundamentally dumb stuff like this.

The final straw though came with the latest update which removed the ability to see any of your existing drafts or even edit your work. Let me be clear here: Medium IS LESS FUNCTIONAL THAN SIMPLY USING YOUR BROWSER. I halfway suspect it is some kind of social experiment meant to test whether people are so dumb that they will use an app without any regard to its quality. The answer appears to be yes.

by Stefani Wilson

While I did enjoy the content on this site, I have to recommend ppl to not PAY for a membership. I bought the membership & the first month was fine- when it came time to renew then came the problem. First my membership disappeared & all of a sudden I was back to “free” status, limited to how much I could read. So I checked to make sure I was charged, sure was, charged TWICE actually. After attempting to contact someone three times through Medium with no response, I went to the website & sent another help request. Finally I received a reply. I sent in everything they asked for, receipts, screenshots etc. still I cannot access the content I paid for & have not been given a refund, just another request for “the bottom portion of my membership email “ thank goodness I never delete my emails because that was sent way back in October!! So as much as I want to give them 5 stars for the reading content, their customer service is so terrible that I cannot recommend anything other than the free membership. Please do not give them any money or you will be facing a huge headache along with paying for the content everyone else gets for free!!!! BOO!!!!

by Sarah A M

I just upgraded and am very confused by the new UX. There are a few major issues:

1. Naturally, people use Medium to post comments on each others pieces and have conversations. Medium does not allow for you to view the back and forth exchange you are having on an article. The most you get is the ability to view an isolated response back to your comment via notifications. Meaning, you are expected to remember the original conversation/comment you made. A huge oversight.

2. You get a notification that someone clapped on your article. You want to see said person’s profile. I have tried clicking on the clap button under my article…. Medium no longer reveals the list of people who have engaged. I also can’t click on the profile of the person when I get a notification of a clap. Meaning, I have to MANUALLY search the person’s name. Am I missing something or is this another huge oversight?

by Razelnutz

I love this app, and used it frequently, until they made the worst possible change to Medium …

this app recently removed what I consider to be it’s most important feature: composing stories on the mobile app.

This is a WRITING platform, but you can no longer write with it!? What?

For me, I spend a lot of time driving and taking care of my kids. I don’t have time to sit down at my laptop, and I need to be able to jot down ideas as they come to me, or I will lose them by the time I get back to my computer. I do almost all of my drafting on my phone using voice recognition, which made it incredibly easy to get your thoughts out of your head and onto the page.

They claim that the change was made due to technical challenges of maintaining the future in Medium . I simply cannot fathom why an app/company of this app’s size and resources could have technical challenges with a basic and fundamental feature that is included in virtually any other app with text capabilities. Every social network app, every word processing app, can capture longform text from their mobile device. How is this challenging?

this app, if you are listening, bring it back! Without this fundamental feature it is nothing more than a glorified RSS feed. You have one of the best writing platforms out there, and I love using your product, but it is no longer useful to me if I can’t compose from my phone.

Truly disappointed in what was once a 5-star, awesome product.

by Alice Valkyrie

I used to love this app, and read articles on it quite frequently. However, about 95% of the featured articles now require a subscription. That would be slightly annoying but acceptable-if there were any way to filter your search to show only free content. Unless I’ve missed something, there’s not, which makes Medium a nightmare to use for free users. With a search filter Medium would get 4 stars.

Update: I’m deleting Medium , it’s currently useless to me because of the issues mentioned above. To add insult to injury, I can easily read most of the paywalled articles for free elsewhere (twitter, internet browser, etc.). If I decide to start writing on the platform I might re-download it. I’m not sure if I should bother, though, since this app doesn’t seem to care about promoting their contributors who don’t put their content behind a paywall.

It’s a shame, because this app has so much potential to be a platform for everyone, but they’re currently wasting that potential.

by Darndtjr

I’ve been a user for about 4 months. I was very accustomed to swiping an article left or right to save or delete it, a very common UX experience in iOS apps. To my unpleasant surprise and confusion, the new update drops you in a new UX experience, one that is decidedly unintuitive.

Feedback #1: UX design 101, when changing an applications UX, make it clear to the user, e.g. small pop up that announces the new UX, and a description of what changed. I for one was confused (bad) because my first thought after opening Medium was that I must have done something to cause the UX I was now seeing (accidentally swiped up, or swiped with two fingers with knowing). I also quickly learned that the ability to swipe was gone.

Feedback #2: The settings link. Do not burry behind a “…” link. After clicking on the profile icon, I mistakenly thought that all I could do were actions associated with story creation. It wasn’t until I clicked on the “…” did I find the settings link.

Bug #1: while in settings, there is an option “Application controls”. Finally I thought to myself, this is where I can change the UX to the view that allows swiping. Nope. Clicking on the link doesn’t do anything. Dead link?

According to the pics on Medium Store, there is an “Investigate” page view which looks like the view that might allow swiping. But for the life of me I could not figure out how to get to that view.

by Akjalidnd48391"17

I love some of the thought-provoking pieces on this platform, and my access to them after upgrading to premium. I love how easy it is to publish as well. However, more and more I’m running into articles that are either click-bait, or geared toward building the author’s brand (usually a combination of some buzz words and fluff), or just really poorly written. The primary method of content discovery is very heavily machine based; I used to try to get around that by first checking whether an article was heavily applauded, commented on (engaging), before investing time to read it, but unfortunately, that was removed in the redesign. The emails I receive re-emphasize this, and the interface doesn’t make it so easy to explore other writings (again because the assumption is that all the exploration you’ll ever need to do is in the list of machine generated articles). I long for a day where I don’t have to waste my time finding good content.

by MikeK1065

There is some really good and interesting writing on the site itself, and you can subscribe to what you like and mostly ignore what you don’t.

There is definitely a political bent here, hard left. There are conservative viewpoints but you have to go looking for them and they seem to draw the most fire, by far. Just be aware of it. I mute a lot of the “Trump is Satan” authors but they still manage to show up in my weekly email, which is irritating. No way to customize that.

Medium itself is weak and I’ve now deleted it because navigation is so bad. You can read article and responses well enough, but if someone responds to something you say, you’re hard-pressed to go back to your original comment or the original article because there just is no navigation for it. On the website you can always go upward in the thread; on Medium you can only go downward. I comment a lot so that’s a deal-breaker for me. Also Dark Mode when commenting gives you a black background with no change in the text color, i.e. you can’t read what you’re typing. Come on guys, this is not even a QA failure, this is just a total lack of dev testing.

by SuzieXoh

I've only been on this app for two months. I was pleasantly surprised by the content. It wasn't all clickbait. I went to a this app live writing session and the teacher was charming and funny. So I decided to stick around.

I have an iPhone 12 Pro and no internet issues. Not sure why this app crashes like this. Maybe tracking? I don't know. That's why i didnt get a membership before. The site is built, be to track your reading and I didn't like that lack of privacy. However, some writers I loved were on it, which legitimized it. I need to find more writers of interest to follow. As much as I probably could use the "I made $$$ this month from writing here's how" articles and how relatable that journey was, I get resentful of clickbait titles and worse, the consistent typos on the especially clickbaity ones that manage to snag me. I am interested in productivity, etc, but it's hard to tease out what's real and what's just a content creator maximising his brand.

By the third click or so, Medium freezes for me. I would love for this to change so I can see the direction this app is growing. I think they mean well and have lofty aspirations. For me, not crashing would be a good start. Thanks.

by Abe Rad

First off I love what this app is doing here. From a consumer of interesting writing, this is exactly what I want; no ads and very often articles that are interesting to me. The articles surfaced are improving as I use the service which is a good sign that what these people are doing with my usage is working.

Medium on the other hand has some nagging issues for those who use an iPad in landscape or simply prefer landscape mode regardless of device. Medium is clearly designed to be used in portrait mode... yes it works in landscape but the layout doesn't really fit the screen most of the time, and has huge white margins on both sides. It's as if the designers decided rather than reflow the text, we'll just keep the same text width and add huge margins on the sides. Large pictures that are embedded within articles tend to be cut off when in landscape, but are sized nicely to fit within the screen in portrait. Even worse, as of the last update Medium shows a blank white screen when switching from portrait to landscape. I know that this may come off as a bit of a quibble, and it is, but a large iPad Pro just isn't very comfortable in portrait, and anything with videos really should be in landscape anyway. Besides, Medium did pester me for a review, so here you go...

All in all, a great service and an app that is more than usable, just not 5 starts great... yet.

by Cinimon

I must admit having been a this app member for the past few years I can tell you I’m never let down by quality. Writers on Medium have their own unique way of connecting their audience. I can only hope that this corporation continues it’s journey of innovation for future of us writers.

One area in particular I would like this app to consider looking into is allowing users to be able to have a history log of what they just read. I was reading a story this morning and accidentally backed out the article. I spent a good 25 minutes looking for it. Luckily I enjoyed the article so much I was able to remember the writer of the article and search him that way. Yes! I booked marked him. *So for those of you enjoying a read...”STOP” and bookmark it. I just recently purchased an iPad so still adjusting.

Thank you again for the quality of reading material you allow the world to enjoy and here is too many more decades of advancement. Not only have you impacted my life personally, it’s allowed me to grow through others experiences. You can learn a lot of valuable life lessons on this app.

by Nikki00515

This is exactly what writing should be. People get to express themselves and their ideas freely, and theres hardly a hierarchy involved. If your stuff is good, people will notice it and give it claps. That’s it. And thats how it should be. There are so many talented people on here. I do wish there were less “top 10 ways to sit on a couch” type of articles, and more posts focused on creative writing. Maybe I just haven’t stumbled upon the right accounts yet?

There are also quite a few glitches I’ve been having while using Medium . For one thing, it crashes nearly every time I use it. I don’t know if this is just a problem with my phone, but no other apps on my phone crash nearly as frequently as this one does. It could also use some design updates but it’s nothing major. There is a “poetry” section, but not much freedom when it comes to the ways in which we can format our poetry. Anyway, I’m just picking on some of the negatives. This is a great community and I can’t wait to really become a part of it!

by Kyn Sage

I use this app every day. Usually I just click on my personal suggestion notifications! And I go from there. Sometimes I have a specific topic in mind, and search & browse until I inevitably find something useful and thoughtful(quick experience!). There are so many dedicated and bright minds writing on this app about what they know best, and I couldn't be happier or more pleased to have found a place they like to congregate for the benefit of anyone who wants to be a part of it. Topics upon topics, minds upon minds, growth upon growth. If you want to use it to your best, personalize your experience as much as you can, learn as quickly as you can(easily done!), and be open to the luck of your life experience to find what you need. Thank you this app!

Edit: I do feel I need to also mention that while I do admire the platform, I do have an issue with app restarting after being held in the background for a short time. I've missed out on several articles because of this, and it's sucky. Stars down from 5 to 4. Still pretty cool

by CeilidhKate

I’ve only been reading this app for a short time, and the horrific news about our current President has become a drug-like lure. Gotta rush through it, get all the opinions, force myself to actually listen and try to relate to Fox Infotainment. It all takes time.
When I get off that spinning, nauseating ride to read more widely and think about what I believe truly matters, which is connection with others and the quest to learn to cooperate rather than tear apart, this app is a good resource. I don’t always agree with opinions, and some of the writing offends my elderly lit major ears, but immersing myself in someone else’s worldview can be enlightening and fun. I find new ideas, a treat for one who reads a lot, and news first steps into other countries of the mind.
this app is definitely a First World Pleasure, but, as I live in the developed world and have time, it’s like exercising my body: an essential enhancement.
Highly recommended to people who are not afraid to wonder and think.

by B2e3a2r7

I would love Medium. However I have subscribed for the unlimited version. And when I make a selection to read I get two paragraphs and a message that I need to change my subscription to the $50 a year. I then go to try that and get the message I am already subscribed. I do not know how to contact and notify anyone about the problem. So I am trying a negative review to see if that works. I feel that a large credit is due and I either want to discontinue Medium or I want to know how to fix the problem. It seems that under profile there should be some way to do that. When I go to my profile I do not see any way to find out what email address my subscription is under or any other helpful information . There is no contact information either. Why not.

by Bigdaddyjohnson

This is an awesome array of knowledge and scholarly information and often forgotten history with respect to the struggles of oppressed black and POC peoples, and the inspirational saga of the overcoming of such horrific violence and unequal treatment demonstrating God is watching and chooses His vindication in time and involving chosen individuals, including even Einstein to act and speak out.

It’s incredible and outright ignorance that the US white supremacy crowd still haven’t by now generationally learned that Black Lives Matter in every stage of our civilization and survival. White increasing fears of both POC power and population dominance in the US is well founded—only it’s already occurring in over 60 percent of US cities and states. The POC Majority-Minority primary grade classes are starting middle school and will be voting at graduation from high school!

by StonybrookTN

If we are to stay in our lanes and pay homage to McLuhan’s witty “The this app is the message” meta criticism, we could dismiss the this app platform as just another channel for the Internet’s amateur-izaton of media. But the proof is in the pudding. Spend twenty minutes scrolling Facebook or Twitter, then spend twenty minutes reading articles on this app. There it is: content matters. And this app delivers. And as far as UI and UX, we are dealing with next-level design with this app. Sleek, intuitive and up to the task of allowing users to create the kind of quality online articles that make sharing nuanced thought possible in a world of distracted social media apps. You’ll open this app to engage by reading, but you’ll find yourself starting and saving a draft for your own ideas. This is a writer’s app, disguised as a reader’s online magazine.

by Trust?Apple

A General Comment about all the articles published by this app, that I will present here:
1: The articles are written under the concept of “Short & Sweet” and requiring only less than 10 Minutes to read & still be able to understand the main goal & objective of the article.
2: The wide diversity of the “subject material” and within which there are varieties of articles or author selections to choose from and thus making “this app Published Articles Being abundantly & broad spectrum rich, with the latter no one will be disappointed by not able to find their area of interest reading material”.
3: For many years I have surfed around in search of finding and reading interesting articles and in the past they all have been few and are many pages written articles. Being in a very busy profession it is difficult to find time and alertness to read long articles.
4: And now “this app Published” short & sweet articles which deliver the very precise information that the title of the article reads. The latter style was the first time ever that I had/have come across and I am very lucky person indeed.
Thank you for taking the time to read my general comment. My sincere gratitude held well wishes to all the authors and the this app publisher.
Sincerely
Shashidhar Shettar

by Sharp11Girl

Today, for the second time in as many days, my this app app refuses to connect to the this app server. I finally got frustrated enough to delete Medium and discovered that my phone will reach the this app website just fine using the browser; it’s just Medium that won’t connect. I reinstall Medium . It’s still won’t connect. and when I have Medium installed, it is very hard to force my phone to open an article in the web browser. It tries to do it in Medium , which isn’t working, so I just can’t read the article.
Please note that I am a this app member who pays for a subscription. I’m going to delete the this app app so that I can continue to read articles, and I hope they have this problem fixed very quickly. Why do they even have an app if it’s not going to work?
update: it was a problem with my phone, not Medium . Rating updated.

by WebGirl!

For me this app started as a platform to test out, as a data analyst, it’s what we do. At first I was skeptical and wondered why we needed yet another form or this app when so many were available. What I discovered is that as a writer in practice and in passion- this app made it easy for me to write and ‘want’ to write, the more I used it. I found the tool easy with features that allowed me to write drafts and ponder on them until I was ready to publish them. It also began growing as a source with valuable insights and learnings, as well as a way for me to connect with other strong minded working women who are dedicated in one form or another to the values of good communication and the evolution of learning. this app is an outlet to express a thought but also a this app in which to continue my search for higher learning.
#alwaysbelearning
Ginny Keegan
LinkedIn/In/GinnyKeegan

by Skaterbrains

Attention App Developers: I ran across an interesting this app story which led me here to Medium Store. I Downloaded the this app App, then Got to the Login Section which has (3) Registration options (1.Google) (2.Facebook) and (3. Signup with E-mail) I chose (3. Signup with E-mail) After keying “Full Name” and “E-mail” fields I hit submit and Successfully received the confirmation email to my iPhone In-box which then provided the link to Continue / Complete my registration. After clicking that link, it also successfully brought me back to the registration page to complete signup which is where I got the Pop-Up Error Message
(ERROR Try Re-Submitting) Tried again, Same ERROR. I’m not trying to beat Medium up or the Developers, just passing the technical difficulty details on in the event anyone cares to dissect it and find a solution. Guess I’ll go back and try Google Registration since I don’t have a Farcebook account. 🤞🏻 And if you read all of this YOU ROCK!

by Gxorlando

The platform works well until you realize that a lot of what is going is Progressives speaking to themselves in an nacho chamber on the paying side of the site with articles from other publications and authors who primarily represent the hardcore Progressive agenda, which is why many of us stay on the fringes or the unpaid side, since there is little balance on the paying side of the Fence. this app has some very good authors on the Pay side, but they also have some down right bigots who do not deserve house room in that their logical and objective skills would get them a D at best in a College essay class since their research and background is abysmal, as well as their conclusions. But that might be said of a lot of journalists these days as well. So I refuse to pay to hear the same old same old, as much as I would like to participate in meaningful discussion, I see it seeping away on this site.

by Iphone&98

I recently discovered this app. I started reading very interesting posts on this website and I decided to download Medium and give it an opportunity, which is something that I almost never do.

Result: I like Medium but one thing. I discovered that the option to play audio wasn’t incorporated on Medium (I try to find it but I couldn’t), which is something that on the website it is available. There is the reason of why I give 4 out of 5 stars. I hope the developers read this review and incorporate the audio feature because I actually enjoy it especially when I am on the move, and I want to listen to something productive. Then I would change the review to 5 stars.

By the way, I’m glad that it doesn’t have adds, otherwise I’d have to uninstall it like I’ve done it with with many other apps.

by SpoonLanternBaseballPark

There is a lot of time fragmentation in the modern world. Prior to downloading the this app app, I would often fill this time by reading Facebook. There is one major difference between this app and Facebook, however. Reading this app makes me smarter. Reading Facebook makes me want to fight all my friends, family, and co-workers over often esoteric, ideological differences that truly have no bearing on reality or the ways that I interact with these people. In the end, I rather learn something I can use than learn that my favorite college math professor believes in trickle down economics.

Download the this app app. Read it on the toilet or the train; read it at breakfast or lunch or whenever you feel the need to take a 5-7 minute break from the crushing weight of your day. Try it; you'll like it.

by Mike3292

The big thing to know about Medium is that if you’re reading something and go to another app to do something, and when you come back to this app it has to be restarted, you’ll lose the article you were reading. Unless you bookmarked it for some reason, there’s literally no way to find it unless you remember the title or author name. This happens fairly frequently and it’s inexplicable that they don’t hook into the iOS API that tells them Medium is about to be moved to the background to simply save a reference to the article you’re reading in case Medium gets restarted by the OS.

Some minor performance issues, like waiting to start lazy loading of images until they're in view. The worst part is probably no landscape support on iPad.

by PussKrook

You'll love this app. this app collects and consolidates top news articles covering every conceivable subject from breaking headline news to myriad categorically specific topics, e.g, latest news in behavioral psychology, tech, science, astronomy, computer coding, etc.
Choose whatever topics you're interested in and this app will list every related article for you. Short on time? No sweat, this app lets you know how long it takes to read each article. Create reading lists, follow your favorite authors, and upvote articles you like. Medium 's platform is super user friendly too. Stop reading this review and download this app, you won't regret it!!
(NOTE: this app had 22k five star ratings when I downloaded it three years ago — why only 500 reviews in Dec 2017?!)