Big Step Backwards

I purchased a WiFi iPad Mini for the express purpose of using this App. And it met every single one of my needs, until they decided to release this horrible redesign.

I travel a lot, and could stop at a Starbucks, use their Wi-Fi to download a few days of newspapers, then read them offline at the beach, on a cruise ship, at the gym, etc. That is no longer possible.

First off there is no edition management. You can no longer switch between todays newspaper, or any of the past weeks newspapers. There’s “In Today’s Paper”, but that just seems to list the top 4-5 articles for a handful of sections.

Second off it seems to be missing a lot of content. Where’s the Date Book, Auto section, Dear Abby, etc? Yes you can find them by using search if you have a connection, but they should also be available using the normal navigation and available for offline reading.

Third, offline reading just doesn’t work well. I assume the red rectangle under Offline Reading is a progress bar, which seems to be marked to indicate complete, but after over 10 minutes on a 60Mbps connection, I still can’t read most articles under todays paper.

Fourth, the app is just plain slow.

If you’re like me and just want a copy of the physical paper on your iPad, like the previous version offered perfectly, then this update is completely unusable to you.

It’s clear Product Management did not talk to actual customers about how they use the app. My advice would be bringing back the old version would be considered a huge upgrade.

SanFranDerek about San Francisco Chronicle