Australian technology guide Smarthouse reports that News Limited’s first iPad app has received less-than-glowing reviews from early adopters who downloaded the program shortly after its Friday May 28th release. Writer David Richards quoted dissatisfied app-store customers who called the app a “pathetic joke”, “Incomplete” and “not a great iPad app”.
Developed by The Australian in conjunction with News Digital Media and app developers Tiger Spike, News Ltd claims the application enables readers to access constantly updated news content in a digital format that retains much of the look of the newspaper, if not the feel”
The $4.95 app is being specifically criticized for its “intrusive advertising” and pop up ads. One reviewer wrote that they “[were] really looking forward to this app but unfortunately it is littered with pop up ads. Trying to read one article resulted in three full screen ads!!!” Other complaints relate to usability, another review writes that “…pages are difficult to pull down …Overall quite poor.”
The barrage of complaints continues as another review writes “This is nothing short of a scandalous money grabbing attempt by the Australian’s editorial team to pretend to their board that they are “with the times”. They went on to say that it is littered with advertising and very limited content. “I feel ripped off and want to know where I can get a refund”.
Earlier in May, media pundit Alan Mutter surveyed earlier iPad news app reviews for the ten most frequently downloaded apps at the time (in order of popularity: USA Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Associated Press, NPR, BBC, Reuters, France 24 and China Daily). He found the average number of stars was 2.8 out of 5.
There is certainly no reason to suggest that the iPad platform isn’t perfectly capable of supporting high-quality successful news apps. For example, Condé Nast’s Wired Magazine app has 4/5 average, with one recent reviewer writing that “Fantastic, This is definitely how you do a magazine on the iPad. It looks fantastic, its interactive, and you don’t have to wait for each page to render. The price isn’t that much of a problem…”
As more and more publications contemplate their first foray into this territory, perhaps they should take heed of the extensive consumer feedback available on iTunes.
May 31, 2010
source: editorsweblog.org
3 Responses to “Failing grade for Australian newspaper’s iPad App”
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