Seattle Times Mobile

I have edited this review because I am so irritated by the distracting and irritating ads that have me trying to cover them as I attempt to read the news. Who needs to see a guy pogoing himself painfully onto a fence over and over again when one is trying to read the news? Not me. I understand how challenging it is for newspapers to make a profit these days. This is why I pay for subscriptions. I am a subscriber (also of NYTimes, WA Post and WSJ apps). Seattle Times, I can read my print edition, delivered daily, but I'd really prefer no ads on the app because I like to read on my iPad first thing in the morning. I also HATE the implied "breaking news" dot that shows on the app icon when there IS NO BREAKING NEWS. This makes your online experience less relevant and less trusted. An app redesign is needed. Badly. UX implies iterative improvements, and clearly the Seattle Times digital media department does not subscribe to this theory. It's too bad, because I would love to love my local newspaper.

I originally began the online mode when I had a difficult time getting home delivery to a new address after thirty years of delivery at the old address. Very quickly, I appreciated the convenience and mobility and no mess aspect of the online edition. Physically, it is much easier to hold an iPad in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, than a newspaper with both hands. Online has been to both coasts and Hawaii. If our resting place has no WiFi, which is rare, a local bar can be used to download the news faster than I can finish a beer....well maybe. My recycle bin is less full and I will never have to walk up the driveway to grab a wet paper again. I am in my early 70s and as my visual acuity wanes I can easily make the print larger...Kurt

The app and its stability is pretty great, but the way they go about the articles feels a little cheap and unbecoming of the Seattle Times. I understand having to pay a subscription fee, and that’s not my beef with the app. My beef is the way they push notifications to your phone that seemingly have a full story, but then you click to open the story using one of your sixteen articles for the month just to find out the story is 1-2 paragraphs long. In fact, 1 out of every 4 articles or so is like this, and as a result makes the app feel cheap and like a money grab, especially when they’re constantly reminding you of how many you’ve read that month and then pushing you to subscribe. I enjoy a relevant, quality news organization as much as anyone, and understand the need to pay for news, but I think the non-subscription method could be fixed in order to draw in more people, people who would actually pay for the subscription at some point in time if it weren’t for the cheap, tacky feel the app gives off.

The app is only ok for reading the latest news, but I'm disappointed that content I receive for my paid subscription is the same as the free app. I even called your office to assist me in reinstalling the app because all I get is an abbreviated version of the print paper. We were loyal subscribers to the print paper for 20 years and wanted to continue our subscription when we moved to Oregon, but the cost was prohibitive, so we settled for paying for the online subscription. If you're going to offer a paid online subscription, I would like to see the app offer the same content since I only read the news on the go and don't have time to sit at my computer. I miss my comics and gardening sections! I'd like to see a search feature too. Please offer your paid subscribers a way to get more content. Otherwise, I don't see any benefit to paying for the subscription.

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The Seattle Times lets you access there main page but after only a couple times that you read an article they want you to spend money to join. No other national news apps require this and when I checked further there are hundreds of other cities that do not require this monetary requirement. I feel that this should be free to the general public. The Times makes enough on advertising and other monetary ventures. Most people do not have the ability to pay and keeping news from the public is not good. I can view all of there national news content on other news network internet apps for free. I can read Seattle news on one of the news networks apps for free. So why bother to read the Seattle Times? More over why should I be made to pay for this news outlet, when KIRO 7 and KOMO both provide free news. Get with it Seattle Times and help the public by providing free access to current news!