News & Observer (N&O): Mobile

Simple, streamline new app. Not a whole lot of bells and whistles, and that's fine with me. One major grip about the app is that, the "share" capability only allow you to share the images of the news article, not an URL to the WWW version of the article. Please consider revise that feature. Thank you.

Newest version is far better than the earlier one and works well on my Samsung tablet. Lots of options and functionality once you learn what it can do. User manual is available, but is a bit dense - or maybe that's me. (April, 2022)

After reinstall the app works much better, now I can read the articles and it's much faster. I'll hold off on more stars until I see an easier way to search.

Much improved! Now opens the article selected from Google and doesn't randomly freeze. Still a bit slow, though

Content is good but the app design itself is horrid. It doesn't use the default font size you set in Android, it doesn't even remember the font size you pick inside the app, you have to set it for each article opened. Whoever designed the app needs to overhaul it from top to bottom to actually work properly since these issues have been around for years.

Selecting notifications from the app does not take you to the related article. It just lands you on the front page.

The loading speed has improved significantly, which is a big plus. Now the frustration is with notifications. If I click on a particular notification headline I would expect it to take me to that story. Instead it simply launches the app in the default mode. I have search for the particular story I went there to read. The title of the notifications also don't say it's the News & Observer but "generic news"

This app just gets worse and worse. Have V9.1.5. Using a Samsung A7 tablet. Can no longer tap on an article and read the article in its entirety. Now have to scroll through paper to certain page in order to read full article. Also true if we try to read on our phones. Also in past some 3-4 paragraph wire service story in the hard copy paper would have longer story embedded online but can no longer read longer story since you can't tap on the story. All in all very poor app at this point.

I don't like this app at all. Cancelled home delivery of hard copy because of delivery problems, e- version isn't a good alternative. Unstable and finicky on my phone. Going back one page often throws me clear back to the starting "read now" or "download" choice. Turns pages unexpectedly when I don't want it to, but i have to fight it when I do want a page turn. New page often not centered on the screen. Not big enough on portrait orientation, huge and off the screen when I turn to landscape.

Pretty good. I prefer the eedition because it looks like the print version.

The newspaper has good content, but this app is weak. Links from headlines on the splash screen often open to a "page missing" page only for you to backpage to the article. However, you're not so lucky following links past this-- if you click links in articles you just get more blank "missing" pages with no way to actually access them. Also, notifications often pop up and when you click these you aren't taken to the article but just the main N&O splash page .

App won't even open anymore! Since the font and page setup have been updated we can't even get in through the app to read the paper. Now everyday I have to manually enter News & Observer and then go to the e-edition page and hope that it will last through the days reading. We spend way too much money for the e-edition to have to jump through hoops to use it!

I don't even give this news & observer app 1 star! Most every time I settle down to read the N&O, the app CRASHES. I have sent feedback, no return contact. I have called and finally got a real person who made a few suggestions. Helped about 1 time. If I did not like the newspaper so much, I would cancel subscription. Looking for a comparable paper. Probably still will cancel, until the app can be fixed.

Since 2012 I have had issues getting the mobile app to work for the N&O. I dutifully pay for the at home subscription and even tipped the carrier the last time i paid my bill by check to Michigan. This app somehow thinks I'm on a phone, NO I'm at my desktop. Both the Times and the Post have working front ends. No wonder N&O is going out of business. More than 8 years and I cannot get an e subscription working. How much longer before I lose patience and give up??

Would give this app 0 stars if I could. News & Observer app does not work correctly. Sometimes when I log in it puts someone else's account name in settings. I paid for a subscription in June which I have cancelled. I have contacted News & Observer 2 or 3 times with no response at all. Some days articles open and some days it says I need a subscription. Definitely not worth $130. Would not even reconsider if problems fixed. I can't stand poor customer service.

Horrible app. Still garbage I didn't think it was possible but it's even worse. You send a notification for a story, I click on it, after 10 minutes of scrolling I give up. Never found the story but saw other story over 5 times each. What a joke. You should be ashamed

After months, tapping a notification still prompts a 5-10 minute load time. Yes, I've cleared cache and all that. It didn't help. Clicking the share button shares the main image from an article, not a link to the article. Notifications have the header "News GenericP v1.3.3 Observer". Has anybody at your company ever actually used this? I want to use this app. Please make it possible.

I like the updated format, but the app takes 5 minutes or more to load the paper. It's quicker and simpler to simply read it online via a browser. 8/26 - I received a reply over a week ago acknowledging that the app is not loading properly. As of today it still does not work. I give up. Don't waste your time with this app. I would rate it zero stars if I could.

News articles don't load after tapping on the link, just stare at a blank screen. I uninstalled and reinstalled, which worked for 2 articles, then back to blanks again. Seriously buggy.

Great content but notifications on my phone about particular articles always dump me to the main site, making it frustrating to find what you were alerted about. If you send me a notification make the link point to the article, not the home page.

Won't open from app. Sometimes opens from notifications. V9 needs LOTS of work. The only way to get beyond the white N&O screen is to clear the cache and reinstall the Android app. V9.1.3 is behaving MUCH better. Sometimes slow, but rarely hangs or crashes.

With each revision, this app got worse until it became completely unusable. In the last 5 days, it hasn't opened at all. I tried uninstall and reinstall twice, but no luck. I no longer live in an area where I can get home delivery, so it's time to cancel my subscription.

I would never recommend purchasing any access to the News&Observer. I bought a "trial subscription" in June, '21 for $2. Very clear from them that I had to cancel by July 14 to avoid full price. I cancelled by email on July 13 w/ clear comments that I did NOT want to continue the trial after the 14th. I rec'd a reply in 2 minutes that the N&O would handle my request in 24 to 48 hours. So I assumed they would & I didn't think again about it again. The N&O charged me for the next 2 months. Sham.

The redesigned app is visually good, however the performance is dreadful. Starting the app takes forever. Links from notifications rarely take you to the referenced article. Very frustrating.

Video doesn't play unless I click ahead initially. Needs an article search feature. Would be nice to be able to open articles searched on Google directly within the app (as the sign-in from the mobile Chrome browser is giving me problems).

Since this app has been updated the beginning of August, it has been dismally slow. Many have complained. N&O response to repair is as slow as the app itself. I'm uninstalling. Not worth the hassle.

Consistent issues with app taking minutes to load and landing in the splash screen versus the article I received a notification about. Update: The delete and reinstall did not fix the issue I originally posted.

The E-edition freezes on my Galaxy Tab A and crawls on my Amazon Fire. I wish you would return the option to download a PDF rather than forcing this app on us. Your standard response seems to be to check with Customer Service, so I did that first before writing the review. Customer Service had no solutions to help me. I want to read the N&O on my tablet. I will cancel my subscription soon if this continues. I've subscribed to the N&O since 1986.