The Philadelphia Inquirer 4+

Best Newspaper App on iPad

Disregard the negative reviews over the bias behind this paper; That is the equivalent of complaining about the lack of steak options at a vegan restaurant.

As a engineer in the software industry, I can say that the team at the Inquirer has far exceeded expectation for what a news app should be and set the bar for what is to be expected for competition. The user experience of the application is superb and the "newspaper" view provides a seamless paperless reading experience for those who want to experience the newspaper without contributing to needless waste.

While other applications from reporting outlets larger than the Inquirer adopt the lazy approach of providing an experience which mirrors that of reading the news on their website, the Inquirer has appropriately invested resources into providing an application which allows users to experience that day's newspaper digitally.

Got my card number & charged an inactive account

Update 2: randomly they decided to charge my card and I don’t know how they got my card number. It also says “manually keyed”. I will be filing a dispute with my bank. I deleted their app long ago because it is glitchy and now they have stolen my money.

Update: still haven’t made the app stable. In addition, I wanted to cancel my subscription but then they emailed me and told me that memberships can only be cancelled by a phone call. Uh, what? So I can sign up online but you don’t want to let me cancel online? What are you? A gym? I don’t believe that it’s right when companies do this. I think it’s a little shady. Luckily I used PayPal and have cancelled the billing agreement so I won’t be charged again. I thought “hey, why not support local journalism” except the only problem is that most of the time I get a spinning circle that takes forever to finish spinning. It almost feels like the Philadelphia Inquirer is stuck in the 90’s/00’s. I shouldn’t have to wait so long to read a notification you sent me or just switch to another article from within the app itself. Definitely cancelling my subscription.

Developer Response ,

We hear you, we're aware of some issues people are having with loading the app. Here on the Inquirer App Team, speed and ease of use are our primary goals. We're actively working on optimizing performance, and we’re excited for you to try out upcoming updates.

5 Stars Just for Using App Store Subscriptions

If nothing else, I would give this app 5 stars for letting me subscribe (and unsubscribe) to the Inquirer through the App Store, which means I don’t have to call and fight with a retention specialist if I ever want to cancel.

Fortunately, the app itself is fantastic to use. Performs well on iPhone and iPad, and has a great “full newspaper” view that lets you easily find articles you want to read and tap into them for a full page read.