Apple News+ Just a really poor app – what is wrong with Apple's devs nowadays?

[ForkHandles]

Magical as in Siri's IQ, Music's search, or the macOS settings panel? My wand is pumped.

Hee Hee 😂😆🤣

To be fair I have no problem using Music search.

Settings panel, fine for me

Siri, nuff said.

 

[Rafagon]

OMG, I forgot to mention that.

Ads! And they're not even good quality ads for premium products. It's the awful base ads, that are literally like spam. I'm married but I get targeted by dating ads for "older women". It's horrible and creepy, with the horrible AI slop artwork, too.

1000s of ads telling me what to do with my pension, too. It seems Apple's ad dept knows one thing, which is that I'm middle-aged. I do turn off ad personalisation.

I think I've managed to block ads in News, however, by using an ad-blocking DNS. Some text ads still appear but I think I've got rid of the visual ads.

You get ads despite paying for the News app through Apple One? That's outrageous.

I share your frustration with Apple's software of late. I won't go into examples, but yes, it can be a pain.

 

[JoeSilver]

Question: a lot of very detailed and well described grievances in this thread. However, even if Apple was willing to act upon it, how would they now?

What is incredible for me is that there is no official channel for sending feedback, or if there is, it's very well hidden.

I mean, when I use an actively developed open source app, I have some reasonable expectation of being listened to by the developers: I just have to file a bug or a feedback on GitHub or whatever source control or bug filing system they use.

When I Google for a problem regarding Apple's software, I often end up in the support website, but besides some rare answers from Apple support or volunteering users (not always correct), it's tumbleweeds...

 

[triton100]

Please submit this feedback to Apple ‘google Apple feedback’. Your points here are completely valid and they should step up. The feedback helps this

 

[aperfectcircle]

I feel this way about apple music, the ios and macos apps. How can someone use the apps and thinks…yeah this is fine. What an embarrassment.

I love the Music app on iOS and iPadOS (don’t use it much at all on Mac) and find it an absolute joy to use. Certainly much easier and nicer to use than the garbage that is the Spotify app, or the absolute monstrosity that is Amazon Music. The only thing that annoys me with Music is the random ordering of genres/categories on the Search page.

Considering I’ve been using Apple Music since day one and how well it knows me, why oh why does it not prioritise genres it knows I like. Hip hop and rap for example should be shunted to the bottom considering I practically never listen to those genres. I browse using those buttons more than using the search function so it’s incredibly frustrating to have to scroll all the way down to find the options I use most.

 

[Apple_Robert]

You get ads despite paying for the News app through Apple One? That's outrageous.

I share your frustration with Apple's software of late. I won't go into examples, but yes, it can be a pain.

Whether you use the free version or the subbed one, you get ads. You can use NextDNS to remove the ads, although one shouldn't have to do that.

 

[aperfectcircle]

Please submit this feedback to Apple ‘google Apple feedback’. Your points here are completely valid and they should step up. The feedback helps this

You’d almost be better tracking down the product manager for Apple News on LinkedIn and reaching out that way than using the feedback app.

 

[Ctrlos]

I'm probably the wrong person to comment on this because I'd rather silo and consume the news on my own terms, not have the daily doom-cycle pushed to my phone. Its why I find the Google feed on Android so utterly useless.

Not being able to completely block the UK tabloids is a bother though.

 

[Rafagon]

Whether you use the free version or the subbed one, you get ads. You can use NextDNS to remove the ads, although one shouldn't have to do that.

Not in the least bit!

I recently became a paid Apple Arcade user, and Game Center occasionally throws up a game suggestion "for me."

It's a quick banner that disappears on its own, but it still qualifies as an ad in my book.

 

[johannnn]

Meanwhile https://news.google.com is free and gives you relevant and fresh news with basically no ads.

Apple needs to shape up

 

[CarAnalogy]

It's definitely the case that any new apps lean towards being very poor.

Even updates to established software.

For example, the new System Settings app in macOS is still very weak compared to what it replaced. When it launched it was missing functionality compared to the older app. It's better now, but it's still a confusing mess, and finding what you're looking for invariably requires use of the search functionality.

Apple applies the iPhone software design principles to EVERYTHING. Including Mac. That just doesn't work but Apple is hammering that square to make it circle no matter what. It's pure ideological dogma, but Apple can't see that. This is why I think Apple badly needs new blood at a senior level. At the moment it's a cabal of late-middle-aged men, and I think they've lost the plot. They missed AI, they jumped into AR/VR maybe a decade before it was ready, and as you say, the only real destination on their product road map is dollar signs.

Ironic for a company that used to talk about square pegs being forced into round holes.

Now everything is forced into a squircle, problem solved!