San Francisco Chronicle App Reviews

UPDATE: a year later, the original review holds, only has gotten some better organization, much worse functionality. ORIGINAL REVIEW:Worst app I can imagine replaces what was a quite lovely and serviceable app. This one seldom loads, and when it does it is enormously reader unfriendly. Organization is messy, unintuitive. Worst newspaper site I have ever seen- perhaps good that I seldom see it because it wont load!

Slow to download content. App freezes at times. Offline mode does not appear to work. Like that it has no ads.

Awful. No more need be said.

Please fix. It is beyond my understanding that with current technology, you are unable to make the SF Chronicle work. It doesnt load, it bugs down, it freezes, and it shuts down. Why cant you fix this? I am thinking of canceling my subscription.

I regularly experience the problems cited by the other reviewers. As a result, I read the Chron less and less despite being a subscriber, depending instead on the NYT and SPON. You can do better and should do!

This improved version is better than the old one but still slow and clunky to navigate. Crashes a lot.

I have to reinstall the Chronicle often to get this app to load, no problems with other newspapers;what gives ? If this is a new improved version, it still is the worst newspaper app on the internet.

Ive encountered links to nowhere, rejected logins, buttons that dont do anything, and I still havent been able to log in online despite paying for a subscription. This is extremely broken.

Still terrible. Fails to load so I still have to delete and re-load app to get it loaded. Time to delete my subscription if the Chron doesnt have enough self respect to create a decent app that works!

Doesnt flow smoothly and takes toooo long to go from article to article. Also, format could be brought up to higher standards, i.e. More reader friendly/presentable

The chronicle is a good paper that has been better. Grammar is declining, proof reading seems to be non-existent and outdated articles seem to hang around. The upside is through Bay Area coverage and active investigative journalism. The iPad application still routinely hangs and needs to be restarted to load new editions or to load the requested edition.

"In Todays Paper" is a mishmash of articles, supposedly on a timeline, but really a sports-forward pile of news articles mixed with "breaking news", that sometimes extends back for days but with no indication of how old and stale some of them are. Background reporting shouldnt be mixed in with breaking news. Advice to SFChron: Study the NYTimes app and copy it. And it still freezes for no apparent reason. (Crashes on iPhone 6 running latest OS upgrade)

Crashes often, fails to load, continues to show outdated news articles. Many articles that are 3 to 4 days dated, continue to show in the daily news. A bit too busy (as if the app is attempting to mimmic US Today). It previously offered a format where you were provided the daily news as it appeared in the print. This version is nothing like the prior version. It updates hourly and therefore is nothing more than a "ticker-tape" news source.

What can I say that has not already been said? It is by far the worst app I have ever used. It can take time to load, sometimes loads the prior days content, crashes on occasion and freezes up regularly. The only reason I use it is because I like to stay on top of the local news but rely on the WSJ for national/international news. I actually prefer the original app and wish they would bring it back or offer it as an option.

This app crashes so often it is amazing. I can predict when it will and expect it to happen. When it does not crash it is mediocre. Agree with others that some stories stay on home way too long... fix the darn thing!

Before the big rewrite the Chronicle app had its flaws but it was usable and gave the feeling of reading the paper. Now old and new articles are mixed indiscriminately, articles I know are there are very difficult to find (have to search for them explicitly, making me wonder what else Im missing that I dont know to search for), and the app crashes a LOT. It also sometimes refuses to load the current days edition unless restarted, sometimes repeatedly. New apps, especially rewrites, often have problems initially, but this one doesnt seem to be improving.

Despite updates this app consistently freezes, refuses to load pages or crashes. The Chronicle needs a whole new interface. I am an e-reader subscriber and depend on this app for my news.

Constantly crashes or wont load. Hello! If u cant find a programmer in SF you have serious issues.

As an update to my previous review (below) the app still almost always freezes on first opening. Requires that I throw the app off the screen (at least once) and then re-open in order to get the first story to actually load. Frustrating that this app still continues to be problematic compared to the NY Times app. The Chron iPad app is still not as fast as the NY Times version in terms of page loading. This current version is better but there a still problems with freezing-up after opening. I still have to close the app; throw it off the screen and re-start to get the first story to actually render on the screen. However, compared to my original review (below) its definitely an improvement. This app has a number of on-going problems that have yet to be resolved. Pages still dont render correctly on pages with banner ads at the bottom of the page. This requires that the user reset the font size so that text re-renders correctly. Otherwise text appears underneath the banner ad! This is just poor programming. In addition, the app still crashes (although not as often as before.) This app should be as good as the NY Times mobile app - but it isnt.

Let me count the ways this app infuriates me: Long loading time Ads cover articles Scrolling not intuitive Comics too small to bother with. Obits given too much headline room Many different pix in article given same captions I read Chron for local news but am daily frustrated with experience.