NPR App Negative ReviewsNPR

NPR Negative Reviews

2.7
2.74981 star

Total 102 Negative Reviews

NPR App Complaints & User Negative Comments 2024

NPR app received 102 complaints, negative comments and reviews by users. Have you ever had a bad experience using NPR? Can you share your negative thoughts about npr?

Please wait! NPR Facebook comments loading...



NPR for Negative User Reviews

No mechanism for feedbackNPR appears to operate in a self satisfied vacuum, shielding itself from potential criticism (or accolades) by refusing all feedback. No comments or Readers Forum. Even “contact us to find what you’re looking for” and “feedback and help” return ‘page not found.’ Too bad; would’ve loved to share thoughts about 2018’s GREAT Reads, for example. Like how Harlequin Romance titles like The Wedding Date, Duke by Default or To Be Honest get included..Version: 4.2.0

Please add playlist downloading or larger bufferingThanks for the return of the playlist! Please improve how the app deals with restarting after losing the internet connection. I almost always have to close and restart the app after losing the connection. Also, it would be great to have the option of downloading the entire playlist to the buffer. My internet connection is very spotty on my commute, and I miss NPR for a good portion of my train ride. Thanks!.Version: 4.2.3

Still crashes on launchWould love to review this, but this version - like the last one - crashes on launch. Every time..Version: 3.6.3

Stick with the iPad formatAn....OK app, I guess. But as with NPR one, a downgrade from the very old good iPad app, NPR News. Here, print articles are jumbled with audio, so one has to scroll through them ALL to just make a playlist😩 I will always support NPR, but their app designers are far more interested in bad “new” technology to predict what you want and pushing that at you than focusing on the quality of a good thing they had..Version: 4.2.4

CrashCurrent edition of app keeps crashing......Version: 3.7.1

Where have playlists gone ?Why have you removed personalization with playlists ???.Version: 4.0.3

Awful, bad update. Give us back the old versionPlease, please bring back the previous iOS app—it’s SO far superior to the updated version!! The previous version was great; easy to use and useful. A news app doesn’t need a fancy interface, it needs to quickly let users find content. But you’ve traded function for form in the new update, and it’s awful. I’ve used the app (and listened for hours per day, literally) since it launched in 2009, and I couldn’t be more disappointed. I have both an iPhone and a Samsung for work, and now I have to use my work phone to listen because it still has the old version. The previous app made it easy to scroll through stories, but this one has flashy headlines and more pictures substituted for the content users want. All the stories I’d loaded in my playlist to listen on the way to work vanished overnight, and I can’t even create a playlist!! The FOUR favorite stations id saved and listened to frequently are gone and it’s cumbersome to find a live stream. It’s also irritating and cumbersome to find favorite programs. You guys have broken something that didn’t need fixing. Please, please ditch this version and give your loyal users back the previous, actually useful one..Version: 4.0.2

Apparent bug in latest release and request for downloads like a podcastI’m a big fan of npr and have enjoyed this app. Coinciding with the latest release, however, the app stopped playing all on demand stories in the playlist sequentially, and had to be advanced manually to the next story in the que, despite my selecting the “listen to all stories option.” The “play all stories option” continues to not work and after the end of one story must be advanced manually. This is particular annoying, and a departure from the previous editions. I have deleted the app twice and reinstalled but the app continues to stop after each story. Double clicking my headphones does not advance to the next story either. Therefore, when exercising, driving or other activities having to advance the story manually is a pain. Please fix. My other request would be the ability to download the stories, just like a podcast, so that they could be played when outside of good or no cellular reception..Version: 4.5.1

Version 4.0.2 too user unfriendly, app is now unusableI used to make a play list and then listen to its content. The new update has removed the play list feature. I don’t have time to browse for a story over and over again. The app has become unusable for me..Version: 4.0.2

New update removes functionality – doesn’t at it!Like so many others here, I am so frustrated that the playlist function is gone. I would have to agree with many of the other reviews that the functionality has been diminished in lieu of a fancier appearance. Now if I want to listen to yesterday‘s show, I would have to download it from the Internet, and listen to story by story, as opposed to being able to select what I wanted to listen to and add it to the playlist. There’s no easy way to get to my favorite programs like Fresh Air, so that we can pick and choose which programs we want to hear. Normally, the updates here are great – but this is one of the worst ones I’ve seen and for what? A fancier app? They advertise that they added to the functionality – but they removed the functionality! Please restore the functionality that you have taken away! I know my voice is just joining the chorus at this point, but hopefully you will pay attention to the sheer volume of comments here – all asking for the same thing..Version: 4.5.4

I love NPR, but not this appI use this app a lot, and listen to morning edition, all things considered, and the Saturday and Sunday shows. That said, the user interface is clunky, and could be significantly improved. Moreover, after a period of usage, the app starts to crash, and sometimes even makes the phone reboot. After a short while of this, it becomes impossible to use, crashing immediately every time I try to open it. At that point, I have to delete the app and reinstall it. I would love to give this app 5 stars. The content is great, but that app not..Version: 3.9.15

Put the playlist backCan’t give it any more stars until the playlist feature that was removed is added back.Version: 4.0.3

GoodA but slow loading but a great source of op-ed.Version: 3.7

Do not update, was good, terrible nowI used to use this app twice a day on the way to and from work. Now I am not so sure. The change from the legacy NPR News app to what we have now NPR is terrible. Key features such as playlist is lost, you can no longer increase the text size (say for reading in car) without affecting all apps. The text of the article can no longer be read by the screen reader, so if you are vision impaired or just want it read out to you while you are driving, you are out of luck. The home screen is a random (most popular) rather than predictable latest news. Popular by what? I see red bull ads there, is that popular? Or was that just paid. Terrible regression. Do not update. You have been warned..Version: 4.0.3

Great Leap BackwardsThis app is so slow and clunky, you're better off getting one of the non official NPR apps. Don't get me wrong, not including silly games, this was my most used App, BUT it's now as slow as molasses. Response time for any action on the app takes 10 to 15 seconds, and seeing as just listening to an article requires at least three actions, this quickly becomes very inconvenient. The previous in-dig-nation (little pun there) had its flaws, but was more user friendly. PLEASE FIX OR RESTORE PREVIOUS..Version: 3.6

Glitchy since upgradeI’ve had consistent problems with this app since upgrade. It always defaults to random programming or podcasts, sometimes changing when I’m in the process of listening. Seems a lot of folks listen to podcasts, but it should easier to access the live stream or should learn to just pick up from where the listener last listened by hitting the play button. Also frustratingly, the stream just stops and never starts again. Sometimes it’s breaking from wifi and going back, but sometimes it just randomly stops. The old app would at least pick the stream back up, even though an add would play. If I’m out and about or apart from my phone, I have to stop what I’m doing, get it out of my bag, take my gloves off, open the app and hit play (hitting play from the Lock Screen does not do anything). Difficult to listen to now and rather frustrating..Version: 5.0.5

Nearly useless without NPR Programs & playlistI'm crushed. I've been a heavy user of the NPR app for a long time. As an expat living six time zones away, it's a vital way for me to stay connected to the news from home. Recently the ability to access Featured NPR News programs and to choose segments from those programs to listen to has vanished. The app's only remaining utility for me is listening to the headline news. I was disappointed when you killed the playlist feature, but this is the final blow. NPR One is equally useless because it doesn't allow me to select and curate what I want to listen to. For the large number of devoted NPR listeners living overseas, being able to listen live to a particular station may not be of interest because of time differences and the fact that local news is less relevant. The latest app changes have significantly diminished my ability to access NPR News. Please please please bring back the ability to access ATC, Morning Edition, and other non-podcast news programs, and maybe even the playlist. How about it?.Version: 4.0.4

BrokenThe app crashes regularly. each action has a 15-30 second delay; I timed it since I had the time. NPR needs to drop the developer. Each update makes the app worse..Version: 3.6

Old NPR App was so much better!This new version is slow, glitchy and hard to navigate. No access to older episodes. No ability to start episodes halfway through or pick and chose news bits from episodes. Bring back the old app or fix this one please!.Version: 4.2.0

No Canadian contentLooks good but missing Canadian links.Version: 0

Drops outSince this updated I can't play any of th audio at all. When I want to start audio, the app crashes. Does this update need the latest Iphone operating system?.Version: 3.3

Ok, could be betterI use this app daily and often multiple times per day. It does the basics pretty well, but I wish it was smoother and a bit more flexible. I echo some of the suggestions I’ve seen posted. My main irritations are also about difficulty in sharing; the developer has responded about an option on the story page; I just know that from the item I’m listening to at the moment, there is no sharing option. For items that I really wanted to share, I have to find it on NPR’s website and send that way — something I don’t take the time to do as often as I think to share something. Also, the Listen To All Stories function seems to cue for an ad/promo to be inserted in the story sequence, which is fine, but it interrupts the flow by either skipping the story that should play right after the ad, or just stopping together after the ad. I select Listen To All Stories when I don’t want to have to hover over my phone, so it’s annoying when I’m across the room or otherwise occupied and then have to go back to it (or just have silence) because once again the play has stopped or skipped. Fine to play the ad, not fine for it to derail the basic play-all function..Version: 4.5.4

Got rid of sound icons, why??It used to be when you look through the home feed, stories that have audio would have a little sound icon next to it as opposed to written-only articles. This made it easy for me to go through the list and choose stories to add to a playlist I can listen to while doing chores. Now you have to tap on each individual article one by one and go into to it to find out whether or not it had audio. Why would they make it less user friendly??.Version: 4.5.4

Good at what it does, horrible for the features it left out.The new app has a better media player, with great pause and fast forward and rewind features and overall is more stable and reliable. That’s the good news. The bad news- they totally did away with the playlist, making it absolutely impossible to save individual episodes and play them whenever you want to. You’re now limited to selecting the current days version of each program, if you don’t listen to the entire program before the next days program comes out, you’re totally screwed, there’s no way to go back and listen to The previous one. Also every time you exit the app and come back it completely forgets where you were in the list of episodes for the days program, you have to basically start all over and manually skip ahead. A lot of wasted of time skipping things I’ve already heard just to get back where I left off listening. It’s basically killed the enjoyment of the app for me and made it nothing but frustrating. I know you guys are trying to force people to listen to the local stations more in order to support them but this is ridiculous. I don’t know who sat down and designed this thing but it seems to have deliberately omitted the very best features of the previous app..Version: 4.0.5

Total failure. Current version does not load content.Review title says it all. Content doesn’t display, all I get is a series of blank screens..Version: 4.1.1

Best features all gone !!!As many others say in their negative reviews, one star is too high a rating for this new version but it’s impossible to write a zero-star review. All the features I used in the old app have been eliminated. I have a Primary Station, yes, but I browse to other stations on a regular basis for shows ‘my’ station doesn’t carry. The process of switching to another station is cumbersome and results in the former ‘Primary Station’ being replaced, so it has to be painstakingly re-selected when one wants to return it. Additionally, the previous version listed all the streams of any selected station, making it simple to select HD1, HD2, etc. The new version makes it nearly as cumbersome to select a stream as it is to choose the Primary Station in the first place. Needless to say, I have deleted the new NPR One app - it’s replaced by individual apps for the stations I listen to. Fortunately by now most individual stations have fine apps of their own. Not as convenient as the previous NPR One version, but a great improvement over the new version..Version: 4.0.1

Eviscerated NPR appOther reviewers have gone into detail on all the useful features that have been removed from this app, so I won’t repeat the entire list. I miss a lot of the old features, but in particular the loss of the playlist has made the new version all but unusable. If I stop listening for awhile the app refreshes and I have to fast forward through every story I’ve already listened to to get back to the one I was on. From the embedded NPR One promos it seems like the purpose of this now sadly limited app is to drive users to NPR One. If I wanted to use NPR One I already would! I can’t stand NPR One, partly because its filter bubbling algorithm has gotten my interests totally wrong and there’s no way to reset it, but mostly because I can’t listen to the important news I want to hear all the way through before it veers off into unimportant, and even outdated, stories. The older NPR News app gave me what I want, which is now gone with this new app. So much for “improvements”..Version: 4.0.2

For Alex Lindsay...(of MacBreak Weekly) For removing the playlist capability and essentially downgrading the app. That said, Alex should really move to a better news source like No Agenda anyway..Version: 4.0.3

So many user experience flawsI really want to this app to improve as I value easy access to the many terrific NPR programs and podcasts. But the current version has too many serious flaws and bugs that should have been obvious to the developers before it was launched. The inability to “favorite” particular programs is a huge oversight. To find a specific program that I listen to regularly, I’m forced to...click “On Demand” then scroll to “More NPR shows and programs” then click “More” the scroll to find my program (e.g. NPR Politics) then click that. Then click the latest show. Six distinct steps. Every time. To listen to a single show. I listen to “Live Radio” daily, and typically one of the three local NPR stations. There is an option to save a station as “Primary”. One would expect this would save that station. Nope. No idea why this option is presented, because I need to choose a station every time. And despite the fact I have location services enabled for the app, I’m forced to click the “Find stations near me” button every time. If I’m on LTE vs WiFi, I don’t get an accurate list. And, as many others have mentioned, the removal of the playlist feature that was available in previous versions is a huge disappointment. The look and feel of the app is clean and modern - but it feels as though there was a serious failure to adequately user test this release..Version: 4.1.1

New update is terribleI know people sometimes have trouble with change, but this isn’t one of those things. The new update is really slow, will stop playing often, does not seem to have any programming from more than a few days ago, and very important for me… they took away the ability to make playlists. I take public transport a lot, and having a playlist made helps. Also I love to fall asleep listening to this app, but now I can’t listen to anything other than just one show or one program. Yes it may look better than the old app, but it’s functionality is way worse. I’m really disappointed that NPR did this. This app used to be part of my day, but now I’m starting to use it less and less. And honestly...maybe there is a little bit of conspiracy theory here, but maybe they made this app worse to get people to use the NPR one app which is also bad, but not as bad as this is. NPR, please please please change this back, or improve the functionality, and for the love of God please add the ability to have playlist! Or just delete this in force everybody to use the NPR one app..Version: 4.0.5

Bring back playlistsOlder version of the app was superior. Really miss the playlist feature. Integrating google cast would be nice too.Version: 4.1.1

NPR fixed sth that’s not brokenThe new app is difficult to navigate, it doesn’t offer the playlist option anymore which was such a great feature. It crashes regularly. I wish I never had updated the app. I love NPR‘s reporting, though..Version: 4.0.3

Hate the new update!!!Hey NPR, ever heard of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”. The new update is terrible! I used to be able to save several local NPR stations as favorites so that I could listen to a variety of programs since each local NPR station has different programming and schedules. Some have original programs unique only to that local station. By being able to have a list of favorite stations, I could easily & quickly stream the local NPR that I want & then be able to listen that station within a few seconds. If I didn’t like what I was listening to then l could easily switch to a different station on my favorites list. The new update only allows one station to be saved as primary when you go to “Live Radio”. I know I’m not the only one who is very unhappy the app changed. In fact, I’m among the many of the unhappy!! Please developers of this app, l advise and beseech you to listen & heed my review and the other reviews from other dissatisfied users so you can reincorporate the old features of the app that made it great!.Version: 4.0.3

Latest update ruined the appI just started using the updated NPR One app. One thing I like to do in the app is keep tabs on multiple NPR stations that have programming I enjoy and local news from places I am connected to. You can no longer do that in the new version. You can choose one station, identified as your local station, and stream that. You can no longer save a list of favorite stations. So every time I want to switch stations, I have to go through the process to choose my local station and find the station all over again and select it. I have to do it again to go back to a different station. Why would I want to do all of that? Some of the stations I like listening to have their own apps, and I might just use those instead. Also, the landing screen and all of the other screens are so cluttered with information about podcasts or curated content that they think I might want to listen to that I can’t actually find the stuff I DO want to listen to. But here’s the thing: the things I want to listen to are on a few different stations. I can find my favorite podcast more easily on my podcast app. So I don’t see any reason to use NPR One anymore..Version: 5.2.0

New version missing playlistI love NPR, but one of the best things about the last app is that there was a playlist you could set up. This new one doesn’t have that feature, so you can’t set up a pile of articles to play through and listen without having to select something new every time. Add a playlist, and this would be a full star rating..Version: 4.0.1

Playlist items don’t always start at beginningWhy is it that, after all these years, NPR still can’t make an ap that simply lets me listen to all stories from morning edition one after the other, in order, without stopping or skipping several minutes of random stories? This seems pretty basic folks….Version: 4.5.7

NPR11Where is the ‘by program’ choice! Agree that it’s too cluttered.Version: 4.2.4

Absolutely AWFUL redo that completely ruined WAS an amazing appOn what planet is the new NPR app considered an improvement???? This new app breaks my heart and only leads me to curse the change. Early and often. And then look for great audio content elsewhere. NPR went from being my favorite app that I loved and used multiple times a day to being one that feels like a useless annoying waste of space on my phone. You took away pretty much everything I loved about the NPR app - the playlist function, the easy search function, being able to search by show and find and select individual stories. Now I have to wade through a bunch of annoyingly messy “headlines” and try to figure out which stories actually have audio and hope they are things I actually want to listen to?? I can’t just go to my favorite shows and scroll through. It’s also awkward to try to share things. Everything about this new app absolutely stinks. Who were the idiots who actually thought this was a good idea?.Version: 4.0.2

No Canadian ContentAmerican News feeds only. Put in some Canadian news feeds and you get at least 4 stars..Version: 0

Playlist gone, app now uselessI’ve gone from using this app every day to not at all after the playlist function was removed. My consumption of NPR content has therefore gone from about 40 min per day to zero. Since I don’t listen anymore, I don’t donate anymore. I check the app occasionally in the hope that developers add back the playlist feature, but the latest release seems to have completely broken the app. The “home” screen is a blank list with the loading icon frozen at the top, the “topics” tab has sections like Most Popular but no content within those sections, and so on. It’s as if the developers disconnected the app from all NPR resources. If the playlist feature was losing money for NPR, I would have appreciated an honest statement from NPR about it, and a chance to pay extra for the feature. Instead this app appears to have been nuked in favor of NPR One, which forces users to listen to a frustrating combination of local streams and very limited curated content, all the while preventing access to what people actually want to listen to: morning edition and all things considered..Version: 4.1.0

Local newscast often cut shortLocal newscast seems limited to 2:01 and is often cut off mid stream. pls extend cutoff.Version: 4.5.4

Won't even openJust gets to the npr logo and bombs out..Version: 3.7.1

New version is awful!Another attempt to give negative review I don’t know why my previous reviews don’t appear. They only thing I’ve said is that the decision makers to release this new version should no longer be in his/her position. I see other people saying that too. Don’t understand why my complaints have been removed. The new version of thisapp is awful. It takes away our ability to save multiple favorites, trying to force us to listen to one station only. This app does not allow ANY shortcuts. It’s also very hard to navigate (unnecessarily long paths of clicking to get to same thing every day) The app drops streams regularly, and then starts some random podcast I never wanted to listen to (happens frequently). Given all the other ways they try to steer us to listen to podcasts, this seems purposeful. Every “upgrade” of recent years is a downgrade of user friendliness and usability. It’s almost as if NPR management is trying g to drive streaming listenership into the ground..Version: 5.3.0

Love npr but hating the appImprove news is great but I cannot listen to the live broadcast because of work so I love loading pieces of news that most interest me and listening to them as I get a chance. This is where the app totally fails. When I look at all things considered our morning edition it consistently odd leaving out news pieces. Like this morning, there where only all the 4 news pieces in the morning edition feed. Why aren’t news pieces loading? In the npr one app all the news pieces are there. But in that app you can’t stream the pieces you want to listen to later in sequence. What should really happen is the apps teams for this app and npr one should take the best features of each app and make one single app. Why have two? Update. There must be some glitch in the app. This bug makes stories not appear. After going back into the app and moving around to different programs all the morning edition stories finally appeared. This isn’t always the case though. Wish they would figure this out..Version: 4.5.8

Try itI m downloading and want to have a try. I think it's a attractive function which allows me to keep the news and repeat to listen later on..Version: 3.1

Quality content that’s hard to accessMuch of the basic functionality of the previous app has been removed. I especially miss the ability to build a playlist. Now, you’re stuck listening to specific programs in the order they are presented. Finding programming is more annoying too. They have these little icons for each show in the On Demand section, and it’s hard to tell which is Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday because the icons are too small. (I figured that they are alphabetically ordered.) More importantly, the app doesn’t interface with iOS controls nearly as well. I often finding myself having to log into the app to get it replaying after pausing it, instead of just pressing play from the Lock Screen. The app is extremely slow refreshing, sometimes not refreshing at all, so that I have to close it by hand and reopen in order to get the latest Newscast. Please God stop with the advertisements for NPR One. I don’t want NPR One, I just want to make playlists myself..Version: 4.0.5

Latest version inferior to previous versionThe latest version of the app was clearly developed in a room of product managers who designed the app by committee with no regard to user feedback or user testing. The previous version, with a grid of programs per row and a swipeable list of stories was such a useful way to build up a personalised and relevant playlist. This latest version is just rubbish. Please bring back the grid, and stop redesigning for the sake of redesigning..Version: 4.1.0

Shockingly BAD updateI agree with all the other negative reviews. I wish I'd read them before my phone innocently updated so I could've kept the old app. My biggest issue is losing the search function. I often use the app to re-listen to a story I partially missed on the radio. The old search function was great for this. The horrible new app doesn't have a search function and the selection of stories by topic is so limited and cumbersome, I couldn't find several stories I'd heard earlier in the day, let alone any past days' stories. I really miss the old app. It had a lot of flexibility and functionality, like the much lamented playlists and ability to easily access programming from distant stations. I don't need to listen to my primary station through this app. They have their own app. I relied on the old app to curate my own listening when I wasn't engaged by my local station's programming. Full disclosure: I've always hated the NPR One app, and always resented that it wanted you to login with Facebook, etc. The wonderful old app was my refuge from NPR One. Now I feel like NPR has broken faith with me..Version: 4.1.0

A couple specific fixable bugsI enjoy this app and use it daily; the playlist has some issues, the biggest of which is pretty clear: the handoff from one story to another. If you are listening to a story that is, say, 3:15 long, and the next item is, say 6:20 long, when the app begins the next selection, it does not reset the “bookmark” (the point at which you are in the selection to which you are listening) so you begin listening to the new track at 3:15 in. It’s a nuisance to have to manually go back to the beginning of the track. Seems like a very easy fix. Also, adding a new selection to the playlist while you are listening to the playlist always creates a clear audible glitch, which varies from a brief pause, to playing a disorienting random snippet from one of the tracks for up to a couple of seconds. Also, the app fails to properly interact with iOS: the Lock Screen interface is unpredictable (sometimes works sometimes not) and lacks the 15- and 30-second-skip features. Still a useful app; needs some fixes. When addressed I would change to 5 stars..Version: 4.5.8

Add a Favorite Button!I saw today’s article written about a black hole (Scientists Find Nearest-Known Black Hole, In Distressingly Fitting Metaphor by Colin Dwyer) and amidst the coronavirus panic and well really the entire fabric of reality breaking down, I found this article’s wry humor to be hilarious and I instinctively looked for that little transparent star that would allow me to save this magnificent little article so that one day in the indefinite future when we don’t have to worry about whatever in the world the next 2020 apocalyptic scenario is going to be (as you can see, I have already accepted that 2020 is going to continue to go downhill-now it's just a matter of "what" as opposed to "if"!), I can look back at this little article and laugh, reminiscing about how chaotic the supposed end times were. HOWEVER! My poor right thumb was left hovering and bewildered as its desired destination, that transparent five-pointed star, remained elusive even after a distressing scroll down and up the page. Please save the last shreds of my sanity and add the ability to favorite and save articles for later! It's the final bastion of normalcy left in this forsaken world!.Version: 4.5.3

Simply dreadful redesignI spend time selecting segments for my playlists and putting them in a particular order. I can’t move segments around with this redesign, the app ignores the order and just skips around playing random segments, which means that all my favorite segments and episodes that I had saved in a part of the list that I seldom play back just disappeared while I was sleeping—several years’ worth of favorites that I’ll never retrieve, because the “just played” list is not part of this redesign. Everything is slower and clunkier—my playlist takes extra seconds to load, screen by screen as I scroll down, played segments don’t disappear right away after they’re played, you need to reload the page and then they’ll disappear, or maybe not, maybe you’ll have to delete segments you’ve listened to one by one, waiting for the page to reload in between each deletion and then scrolling down to get back to your place—none of which I had to do in the old app! Finally, the app is less intuitive and more confusing to navigate than it used to. Oh, and On Point is gone. I wish I could just go back to the old app; it wasn’t perfect, but it was much, much better than this..Version: 5.0.4

Frequent crashesAttempting to listen to some stories will instantly crash the app. There is no way of telling which stories will cause this behaviour and about one-quarter to one-third of stories will. Essentially, if you use this app, it will crash and it will crash often..Version: 0

Used to be goodThis is lousy. Nothing works except the donate button..Version: 4.2.3

Update ruined a great appIt’s true, the NPR news app had it’s probs - you cld only play individual stories, but you cldnt play an entire show. Well, they changed that. But, they also took away the “play” bar, which allowed you to go back over something you might not have heard, or skip over something u don’t care about. Now if u miss something u hve to re-listen to the entire story - or the entire show if you had made that choice (either that or re-listen to the story, but then yr back to listening to individual stories). Basically it takes away some of the flexibility that makes podcasts easier than the radio show - On Demand is nice, admittedly, but considering I’m listening on my phone the ability to go back over stuff i missed was important to me. It used to be a lot more User Friendly too. There also used to be a great many more podcasts available. Now, instead of an easy to read list of dozens & dozens of podcasts, there’s abt a dozen icons instead - idk the logos for NPR shows, so icons take up space while not helping much. There isn’t a Search function neither. I got sold on the update bc of the ability to play the entire show, now I regret it. I might as well just get the NPR 1 app that has all their podcasts..Version: 4.0.2

Inconsistent Playback and InstabilityFor years the NPR app has proven to have unreliable playback. During my commute in the morning, I add “Morning Edition” to the play list and in the evening commute home, I’ll do that same for “All Things Considered”. The app often stops playing after a story is finished yet there are still several stories left in the playlist. More often, I’ll find that the next story that is played starts somewhere in the middle rather than at the beginning. It almost seems that UIDs for stories are cached and that a previously UID (or not so unique, rather) is reused and I’ve skipped or jumped to the next story before, this new story pics up where the previous UID’d story left off. (That’s just a guess). Regardless of the reason, I often get so frustrated with the NPR app that I switch to Apple Podcasts, Pandora or NPR One rather than continue using this app. This has literally gone on for YEARS! I wish NPR would get just their s4*t together and make and app as good as their news coverage is. Right now, the app is well below expectations..Version: 4.5.7

Potential to be greatI think the NPR app could be great! I had an npr app that was orange a few years ago. It would show the station’s itinerary for the day with the times. I found that SO helpful! This new one doesn’t even show the name of what it is playing - only the station name. I moved to the PNW a few years ago, and I greatly dislike the npr stations up here. I like to listen to the ones back home - KGOU and KERA. But, I never know which show is playing until I start listening - the time change always throws me off. Is there a way to have a listing of what’s coming - like on a tv guide kind of thing (Like where it highlights where it is or moves the bar so you can see what is playing at that exact time)? I would think NPR would have the resources to make this a great app. Could you please put a team on it to make it more user-friendly like many other “entertainment” type apps. Thank you!!.Version: 4.5.8

Not happyThe old app was fine - clean and simple. This is a disorganized mess of features I don't want and don't use. Please restore the old one as an option..Version: 5.3.0

Miss the old appI don’t write reviews often, but the disparity between the recently revised NPR app and the old version is too great to ignore. The old app, while less ‘modern’ looking, felt less rigid, more customizable, and less cumbersome to use. The utility I miss the most was the ability to create playlists from stories from various NPR programs into one stream, and have that stream auto-play from one story to another. Now, if one plays an individual story in Morning Edition, for instance, it does not auto-play the next story; one has to go back into the app and manually play the next story or the entire program must be played in order for a “playlist” to be created. It’s cumbersome and sometimes dangerous, particularly while listening on the road. I can fathom that this system forces the listener to listen to 1) more ads (which seem to be auto-generated in between stories and could not be before with self-created playlists), and 2) more stories (forcing the listener to listen the entire program instead allowing the ability to choose). Please bring back the functionality of the old app. I have spent the better half of this morning searching for whether it is possible to reinstall old versions of apps in iTunes..Version: 4.0.2

No background modeRadio stops playing as soon as screen turns black. Which means you can only listen it to a minute or so and then have to turn the screen on if you want to continue. I like NPR but this app makes it impossible to listen to it..Version: 3.0.1

Great Idea but....Great idea, but sooooooo sloooooow! Hoping for an update to fix.....Version: 3.6

Tiny screen, doesn't resizeThis is not for iPad. Or even a larger iPhone? I can only see half the headline, it doesn't display properly on my iPad mini at all..Version: 3.9.13

CrashtasticLatest update (3.7.1) makes the app crash before even loading....Version: 3.7.1

Perpetually glitchy.For three years now, this app constantly plays the next segment at some random spot in the next segment. If you want to listen to All Things Considered or Morning Edition hands-free, it is absolutely impossible. You periodically have to grab your phone, unlock, open the app, launch the player, and then scroll the finicky slider back to the beginning when the next segment inevitably starts at some random point. Often this random start is very close to the end of the next segment and you only have seconds before it is lost to the “already played” list. Love NPR! This app is beyond frustrating; especially while driving, doing the dishes, painting, showering, climbing a ladder, gardening, riding a bike, sweeping the floor… living life, etc. I have actually cracked my phone because I had to pull it out of my pocket to launch the transport slider to swipe a segment to the start. I have nearly avoided a few major driving accidents because I am constantly being forced to reach into my pocket to pull out my phone to correct the random random start of the next segment. It’s a weird and frustrating bug, and it’s been around for three years! I’m not the only one reporting this bug..Version: 4.5.8

When will you bring back playlist?Please show respect for your listeners and allow them to save stories for later listening and choose what they want to hear. Bring back the best feature. Make it easier to click and save vs useless layers. Give the stories a longer shelf life - now the only option is to listen in the moment or lose the chance to hear it. I used the playlist several times a day to listen to what I chose when I had time. A big variety of stories and topics. Why make a change to take away that beautiful freedom? I looked forward to my free time, walks and drives when I could enjoy all the stories I’d saved for later listening. There are days when it’s too busy - but I could save stories and listen the next day. Add back playlist. Listen to all this feedback from multiple avid listeners and bring it back. Respect your listeners’ ability to chose their own stories - the one app also does not respect the listener. Are your app developers actual users if the app? Must not be... do you listen to your listeners??.Version: 4.0.3

IOS app crashingHave to delete and redownload every few days to get stations to play at all.Version: 4.5.2

Disappointed to lose the playlistsWhy remove that option? Now I can’t select the collection of stories I want. Tough for cooking, working out, etc. I’m very disappointed..Version: 4.0.3

Broke what didn’t need to be fixedThe interface was simpler before. Now it’s kind of clunky and the add to playlist button doesn’t do anything..Version: 5.0.2

Latest update a disasterAfter loading the latest update, I can't open the app AT ALL! There was nothing wrong with the previous version. Please fix this soon--I miss my NPR!.Version: 3.6.2

Zero stars- can you just make it easier to stream my radio station?I already have apps for layering to podcasts. I like a lot of NPR, but also RFI, RTE, Radio Canada. I don’t need this one. What I do need is an app that shows my radio station on the front page (why do I have to hunt to the personal page, and then why only allow me to favorite one station?), it needs to let me just hit the name of the station I want to listen to LIVE, and then play that radio station. That’s it! If I have to pause for a moment to do something, I need it to start playing again when I hit the ’play’ icon on my audio controls, like every other app, EVER! Instead I have to go back into the app, hit the app’s’ playI’ button, usually several times. Right now I’m writing this review because I can’t get it to start streaming again after an incident just like this. I was excited to see the update, and so disappointed that it seems not to have addressed basic functionality like this. I’m going back to TuneIn radio. At least they’re able to stream properly..Version: 5.0.5

Useless to me without playlist featureI used the NPR News app every day for years. I queued all the content I cared about when I had time to do so, and then I could return to the app at any point to listen to all those selections I made. It was nearly perfect—the playlist feature in the previous NPR News app was a bit buggy. In the new NPR app, there is no way for me to queue any content, and there is no way to automate playing of content I want to hear. I now simply have to be content with whichever ‘stream’ I’m listening to or be willing to put in a lot of conscious effort to constantly choose the content I want to listen to. I don’t—I switched to an app called News Now, which also does not have the features I want. It does let me stream the day’s national news content without much effort, and that makes it better for me than the new NPR app. Implement a playlist feature in this app. I want to be able to choose any NPR content, especially nationally relevant news segments, to keep in a queue that I can store, return to and choose content from at any time. Until the NPR app has a playlist feature that allows me to do these things, it is useless to me..Version: 4.1.0

Revert back to the old appI rarely take time to write app reviews (this might be the first). The new NPR News app is so functionally deficient however that I couldn’t keep quiet. The old app allowed me to read articles even when offline or with low signal, which was critical for my morning subway commute. I also kept a list of favorite stations that I’ve learned to love all around the country in different places I’ve lived. I’ve even been able to easily tune in to these same stations while living in other countries. The old app was incredibly more functional and useful if not as beautiful as the new app, which considering that none of the articles and photos load while I’m underground in the morning anyway, doesn’t really mean much. UPDATE: It gets worse the more I use it — there’s no search function! NPR, I’m trying to share your news and I can’t just easily go into the app and do that?! How does that make sense — earned marketing is the gold standard of what you want your listeners to do for you!.Version: 4.0.3

Almost pretty goodWhen you want to listen to the playlist, it plays one item and then stops. You have to go back and open the app and then the next item will play. A little frustrating in an otherwise great app for NPR. Would also appreciate being able to listen to the 24 hour cast that is available on the website..Version: 3.4

Drop Outs AnnoyingNPR is a great station and you know this because you're thinking of downloading the app. One problem though... I'm running 3G on my iPhone and the programs keep dropping out. I'm listening for a minute or so and then they stop and there's no way to pick up where they drop out. You have to restart from the beginning and find where you for up to. Really annoying!!.Version: 0

Stopped working since the updateNPR news used to work perfectly till sadly updated. I don't know what to do to get it working like before. Please, work on this promptly..Version: 3.7

Buggy and inconvenient designFirst of all - every time I leave a review for this app I get a “message from developer” which I can never read and then my review and rating disappear. Anyways, trying again again. I’m a sustaining member of my local station and listen almost exclusively via this app. All i want to do is get up and listen to Morning Edition while I cook breakfast. App is incredibly slow to load, requires significant navigation even though I do the exact same thing every day (especially w weekend edition! Just give us a shortcut or a way to subscribe!), and because I don’t get wifi in my kitchen, i have to leave the phone in another room and play via Bluetooth speaker. So then when the app starts arbitrarily playing a segment in the middle or stops playing for no reason have to leave the room to go press play again or start the segment from the beginning. Please, JUST RELEASE MORNING EDITION AND ATC AS PODCASTS!!! Omg i just cannot express how frustrating it is to use this app!! I just want morning edition to download automatically like a podcast and then play straight through!! How hard is this!??! Please just quit it with the stupid middle management politics or whatever reason you have for not either improving this app or releasing as a podcast and provide a useable and convenient way to listen to the news for those of us who would like to listen to shows on our own schedule. This app does a disservice to NPR.Version: 4.5.3

Update is buggyThis was a great, user friendly app. Now I can’t stream the latest newscast. Also, when I listen live, it’ll suddenly stop streaming mid-story. What was broken that needed this fix?.Version: 5.0.4

Upgrade???This is the first review I have ever written, but I am motivated to write it because this redesigned app is disgraceful. The old app functioned perfectly for me, yet this new one is so full of bugs, it is completely useless. I am frustrated because again, I will have to find a new way to stream NPR programs. Please, please, please, just get it right once and then stop with the "improvements"..Version: 4.0.3

This app is better than NPR One. . .And I liked it best until I found weekend edition throttled to 4 stories this morning. My phone is loaded with apps, some of which I use, and I’ve never rated an app before in my life, but this was like a final straw. I’ve used NPR One and thoroughly disliked it before returning to this app. I’ve suffered through the various iterations of this app designed to make everyone switch away from it to NPR One. And now this. If I could get my favorite programs - especially morning and weekend edition - as podcasts that I could hear from my podcast app, I’d happily ditch both of these. I already listen to several other NPR programs that way. These apps are both getting in the way of me enjoying NPR, which I really like on the radio and contribute to financially through my local stations in South Carolina. Change developers or something, or else spend any money going toward app development on something that will meet the standards that NPR usually sets. I’d be very willing to pay for an app that lets me download and listen to playlist content from NPR. Or just make everything available as podcasts and be done with this app stuff. It is not bringing this listener closer to NPR..Version: 4.4.0

Crash!!One of my most beloved apps...and most frustrating. Crashes upon launch every time. Why can't NPR get it right??.Version: 3.7

Frustrating Scroll lagScrolling through the list of articles can be frustratingly slow. The fraction of a second pause is fairly consistent. Please fix..Version: 4.4.0

The things I loved are gone...You moved/removed my cheese. I thought the previous versions were simple to navigate. I use the iPhone app every day and multiple times each day. Now I’m struggling to find the stories and programs I used to easily browse and either read or add in my playlist. However, the most frustrating loss is the inability to create a list of favorite radio stations that I could easily go to and select. As an example, If I missed Morning Edition in my time zone I could go to another NPR station in a time zone 3-6 hours away to listen there. Now I can only select and list a single radio station, no ability to create a quick to reference favorites list. So each time I want to switch I have to remember the station ID or city, search for it and then select it. This app is nearly useless to me now. I contribute to WAMU, WABE, WGBH AND KCRW every year because I frequently listen to each. Your app re-designer has failed people like me. I’ll be installing one of the internet radio apps and using it instead - BOO.Version: 4.0.1

Crash, crash, crash, crash, crash...It crashes - a lot..Version: 3.7

Roll back please!Once again NPR has successfully “improved” upon an excellent app by creating an inferior one. The drastic new interface changes are innovative for the sake of being innovative, and only serve to limit or confound the experience of the user. By eliminating the “now playing” queue, NPR has also limited users’ ability interrupt play for other smartphone functions: there is no longer an ability to take a phone call and then return to where you left off. The app reloads to the start page with no bookmark to what program you were listening or how far into it you were. Also problematic is how the app determines your local station - though I have manually selected my local station, I am frequently diverted to another one that is 1000 miles away. All of this would be bearable, at least, if with this new rollout NPR didn’t also take the opportunity to eliminate options it had previously offered. Don’t waste time looking for reruns of Car Talk! It is no longer available here..Version: 4.0.3

Please give listeners controlThis new app is bad enough that I could consider stopping my monthly donations after decades of support. I want to choose what I want to listen to and then it stops playing when it gets to the end. Please do not play content I didn’t ask for. Also, search and content cataloging are too hard to work with. It feels defeating at times. I find myself listening to NPR less..Version: 5.2.0

Could be so much betterReally needs a playback speed selector. 1x isn't good for everyone..Version: 5.2.0

Possibly the Worst App Build of All TimeWhoever was in charge of the project to build this appshould not only be fired, but they should be dragged in front of all the NPR employees, have the stripes ripped from their shoulders, their sword snapped in two across the knee of some enforcer, and be sent alone out the gates of the fort out into the wilderness, never to be seen or heard from again. Seriously, this work should bring shame to the entire family of whomever turned it in as a complete project. I like to fall asleep to talk. Especially any kind of science story. So with that in mind NPR’s app should easily be in my top ten and maybe it would be, had they bothered to build an app. Want to make a playlist of the stories you’re interested in? Well, there’s some buttons that will take you, step by step, through all the sensations of picking out your own stories and putting them in the order you choose, but that’s about where it ends. Half the time, the “playlist” stops after the first story. Great a playlist of one, yay? The other half the time, when it does continue to the next story, it starts about 2/3 of the way. This would be useful, we’re I only interested in the end of a story. Unfortunately, as much as I appreciate a good landing, I need the context. This app is so poorly made it’s offensive..Version: 4.5.8

Version crashes repeatedlyOn my 4s running os 6.0.1 NPR crashes frequently. Runs for about 5 mins then crashes (happens on both all things considered and morning edition radio)....Version: 3.7

Where has its mojo gone?This app no longer wants to know the latest news — on any topic!! Please help me get my daily fix of US news again!.Version: 4.5.4

Crashes constantlyCrashes immediately and consistently every time I open it. Before the last update, it crashed often, but this time I can't open it at all! Please fix soon, this is my only access to NPR and I miss it!.Version: 3.7.1

Love NPR, hate the appContinues to be buggy. Crashes. Can't download and buffer whole shows or segments..Version: 3.7

What’s Wrong with the App!Starting a few days ago, my app stopped refreshing. I deleted it and re-downloaded it, and now it isn’t showing anything. What the heck, NPR?!.Version: 4.5.1

User Experience...Great app however, since the release of iPhone 3.0 software it crashes whenever I try to access my playlist..Version: 0

Terrible update, delete app nowThe best feature of the old NPR News app was the ability of the listener to create a personal playlist from a menu of stories from various NPR programs. They’ve taken that functionality away. This app is essentially useless to me now, and I’m deleting it. EDIT: eight weeks later, and NPR is making qualified statements about they will “work on building a better queued listening experience for NPR in the months ahead.” Except NPR ALREADY HAD THAT SOLUTION and dumped it, presumably to force listeners to NPR One and local stations. As a result, my NPR listening has declined by 95%, and I did NOT renew my longstanding membership with my local affiliate. Bring back the playlist! EDIT (JUNE 10): I see the developer responded to my earlier review. Refusing to renew my NPR membership is entirely in line with my objection to the removal of the playlist. Local affiliate fundraising provides stations with funds to pay for programming from national NPR, and moreover, one result of the removal of the playlist was to force listeners to the local stations instead of self-curating NPR content through the app. I recognize the importance of local stations, but local stations need to use their leverage to support listeners’ range of options, not reduce them. Until the playlist is restored, we should not contribute to NPR through its member stations..Version: 4.0.5

UX needs workContent is good. User experience is not..Version: 3.9.14

Redesign looks nice, but missing fraturesThe new NPR app is prettier than the old app, but it is less usable: # No search. I hope this is added back soon, but the new app simply does not have any search functionality. I can't see why search is omitted. In particular, this makes it impossible to listen to segments that are no longer currently listed in the latest installment of a program. For instance, I often like to losten to "It's all politics" segments from Friday's All Things Considered. And this is now impossible, unless I listen on the day it airs. # More menus/more navigation. For me, and (I suspect) many other listeners, the most inportant page is the list of all programs. This is where I always start. It is now tucked away in a submenu under "On Demand". It's just a bit of additional scrolling + an additional tap, but I find myself doing this over and over again. # Lower information density -> more scrolling. Once within a list of stories/segmants, only 3 list items fit on the screen at once (on my iPhone X). This makes it harder to look over a list and choose which items you want to listen to. This change allowed for small excerpts to be displayed underneath segment titles, but these excerpts are often truncated first sentences which, in practice, don't actually help summarize what a segment is about. - Taken together, I can no longer use this app to listen to NPR in the way I want to listen to it: picking individual segments to add to my playlist..Version: 4.0.2

Terrible updateSooooo sorry i traded in a well designed, concise, uncluttered, version for this newer version. just awful interface. confusing to navigate. shows only a few past episodes for any given show. can’t seem to locate older shows or segments i may not have had a chance to listen to previously. too little info per page means much, much more button pushing than previously. really bad update. suggest you stick with what you’ve got until this developer unclutters and returns to a more streamlined offering. a real drag for me as i love the programs that npr produces. but this app update.... get me out of here! hate when this happens. get it together npr..Version: 4.2.1

Bring the NPR News app back, pleaseThe new NPR app seems designed like the NPR One app, which is really unfortunate. On the old NPR News app, I could create my own playlists, listening to these three stories but not that one. That functionality has all been removed from the new (and certainly not improved) NPR app. Sometimes I might want to listen to most of one day’s All Things Considered program, but would (for example) delete the sports stories because I just don’t care about them. With the change to this new NPR app, it’s not possible to curate my own NPR playlist. It’s frustrating that NPR’s “digital” department thinks that this is what their listeners want. The new NPR app is much less listener-friendly and makes it more difficult to seek out new/interesting content. It is still easy to find Morning Edition or All Things Considered—but it is very difficult to find the off-the-wall and obscure programs produced by smaller NPR member stations across the country. The old NPR News app was great for that. Ugh. I gave up on using NPR One years ago because I didn’t like how that program “decided” for me what it thought I would want to listen to. I was an active user of the NPR News app for years and years. I used the Playlist feature on a daily basis. It was a very frustrating morning to be forced into using this new NPR app that has taken away much of the functionality of the old NPR News app. Please bring the old NPR News app back!.Version: 4.0.1

Did music die?As other reviews of this redesign have outlined, the redesign of this app has made for a frustrating user experience, and gotten rid of some fundamental features or reorganized them in such a way as to make it not worth the effort. In addition to the confusing navigation (I have to reallly look for the news briefs every time), it looks like music-driven NPR affiliate stations and NPR-produced shows have been excluded. I used the old NPR app to hop between different affiliates in my area (NYC) and also elsewhere on a regular basis, for a mix of news and music. Stations like WQXR and WBGO seem to have been taken out of local search and I can’t even find national shows like All Songs Considered or Tiny Desk Concert. What’s the point of having a unified app if it’s not incorporating all NPR programming. Will you be releasing a separate music app? During a time when drastic news events are contributing to a mass mental health crisis, it’s downright cruel to NOT make music shows and stations readily available alongside headlines and news shows, when it’s a way many of us try to deal with the insanity..Version: 5.0.4

TerribleGreat programming, but awful app. The old version wasn’t great but it did work. The one is unusable..Version: 4.1.1

NPR One in a trenchcoatThe old app was never the best, but this new version- basically a thinly disguised NPR One- is terrible and a huge step backward. Like NPR One it emphasizes podcasts and other garbage at the expense of live, local radio stations and newscasts- arguably what most NPR listeners actually want. I used to be able to open the app and immediately start listening to my local station (or other national stations if I wanted) and now it takes multiple steps to do so. I have podcast apps already, and if I want to listen to podcasts I know where to get them. Don’t force NPR One on me. Stability-wise this app is definitely worse as well- it takes forever to connect to AirPlay with multiple starts and stops and random disconnects. After the third disconnect in 10 minutes this morning I just opened my local station’s app and used that instead… it’s ugly but uncomplicated and the stream just works. Listen to your users- this really, REALLY isn’t just whiners who don’t like change. This redesign really is a huge regression. Keep NPR One it’s own, separate app and stop forcing it on the rest of us..Version: 5.0.4

Gone from buggy to unusableIf you have an iPhone I would recommend you not even bother trying to use this (cr)app. I’ve been using this app for several years to listen to local and national public radio stations, as well as read quick headlines. It has always been fairly buggy, dropping streams or just not connecting. It had seemed to be improving until this last week or so, and I appreciated the stability. It is has become my primary way to consume NPR and local radio station content. Now it is so broken it is not worth using, and I’m wondering if I really need to continue contributing to NPR as a supporter, if they are going to waste funds on worthless apps. Now my closest local station, OPB, never works. When I play it, I get the (annoying) bumper ad but then nothing—just “dead air”. My next most local station, KUOW, does work, but drops every few minutes, usually for a few seconds and then repeating the (ever annoying) bumper ad—leading me to think the connection was broken and reconnected. It often just stops for no reason. I can click the Play button on my iPhone’s lock screen or my Apple Watch, which usually does nothing, then I have to unlock phone, go to the app and press play or try restarting app. These issues occur all the time now, and with multiple locations—different Wi-Fi networks and using cellular data. So it is not just my network..Version: 4.5.4

Why is there “already played” list that can’t be deleted?This is a pointless feature, totally inconsistent with normal app functionality, and is a privacy concern. Why even have this feature? It’s nice that you guys brought back a somewhat functional app but why do you insist on overthinking everything? The old NPR app worked fine, NPR One was deeply overthought (and overwrought) and barely functional and this new NPR app brings in some some of that limited functionality. It seems like it was designed by someone reviewing the corporate description of NPR - obsessive focus on repetitive news that generates local revenue for national NPR, as if it were the 90s and we weren’t able to get a news summary immediately by swiping on our phone - rather than actually providing access to the rich diversity of content available throughout the NPR network. It just doesn’t seem that hard to give people what they want and have clearly asked for for some time. It honestly seems like there are developers “guessing” at what users might want. Why not just ask them if it is so hard? Why waste all this time, money and waning good will creating limited functionality?.Version: 4.2.1


🙂 NPR Positive Reviews
Is NPR not working?

NPR works most of the time. If it is not working for you, we recommend you excersise some patience and retry later or contact NPR.

⛔   NPR Problems
Applications with negative comments similar to NPR
NumberDensityOperation negative reviews, comments
NumberDensityOperation Negative ReviewsKotoch MehraUtilities2024-04-12
AnimalWalkerMobile negative reviews, comments
AnimalWalkerMobile Negative ReviewsYevhen ChemerisLifestyle2024-04-12
Animal Collector: Ark Book negative reviews, comments
Animal Collector: Ark Book Negative Reviews雷霆遊戲股份有限公司Games2024-04-11
MandiHex negative reviews, comments
MandiHex Negative ReviewsHalil AltunarUtilities2024-04-12