Financial Times: Business News Ratings and Reviews

EDIT: They fixed it! Thanks, the widget is better again. With the widget and convenient offline reading features I think this is the leading news app as far as the software is concerned (for papers worth reading at least).

Why they added a thick black border to the widget is beyond me. It makes the text smaller and the widget uglier. For a long time I assumed it was a bug. Yikes. That being said I’m glad they have one. Please tell your colleagues at Nikkei Asia to add a widget as well.

This app and the FT site doesn’t allow paid subscribers who need to use these articles as sources for academic or scholarly research to save full text articles to organizers like Pocket or Evernote. As such the FT subscription is worthless. Other major news publications allow subscribers to save full text articles for future reference and use as source materials. A serious scholar or researcher needs to be able to keep full text articles from various publications on specialized topics in one folder or location. The way things ate at present, a subscriber has to log on to the FT app or website, then go to a different site, location or folder to compare or supplement the information in the FT article with that of articles from other publications like The Economist or Bloomberg. This is a huge nuisance indeed. New regulations are needed to stop FT from engaging in this monopolistic practice.

The app’s interface is great for things you only do once — add topics to track, share links, save articles.
However it’s much more difficult to scroll through a list of headlines, read one, and then jump back to the same place in that list. Instead, it sends you back to the top/beginning and you have to find your way back.
My own “myFT” profile has a quite long chronological list of articles. When I open an article published 4 days ago, I hate being forced to scroll down past >70 headlines to find the ones published 5 days ago. I should be able to jump back to the same place in that list.
Same recommendation applies for Search results (would also like to see filters there) however I understand such a feature would be harder to develop.

I used to have enormous respect for FT, and had the paper delivered. But since I’ve subscribed to you digitally I discovered that you’ve really become a much less consistent newspaper.

> Your digital service has frequently found new reasons to deny me access to interesting articles. Some are parked off limits behind your $700+ /year — why not $7000 ? —“ premium” service. Some complain that i only have a “trial” sub, despite paying $370 for a full year last Oct.

> Your censorship policies on comment letters are quirky at best. I have the sense that an AI bot is being put thru its paces.

> Your coverage is terrific in certain arenas that i follow closely, like financial crimes, and miserable in others, like what’s really going on in behind the scenes in European politics, the rise of the New Right, and most of your coverage of key South democracies like Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria. Private Eye does a much better job of breaking investigative stories w far fewer words.

There’s more, but overall, even tho i disagree with its politics, the WSJ does a much better job of original thought provoking reporting — for much less $$$.

Best

The layout on my iPhone, iPad, and iPad mini is excellent. The only complaint is that I often come across gated links to FT articles on Twitter and the web but there is no way to automatically open the story in the app and access with my subscription. The New York Times has this feature for its app. With the FT, it’s necessary to open the app and attempt to locate the article manually. Otherwise, a superb app and newspaper.

App is terrific because you can select which section you prefer the app to open on, and can also follow journalists and topics of your choosing. Best of all, you can follow newsletters as well, so you can read them directly in the app without needing to clutter your inbox. FT journalism has the best unbiased reporting, best use of language for depth of understand but ease of reading, and truly the best newsletters you can possibly find.

In a media landscape increasingly consumed by superficial trends and celebrity gossip, the Financial Times remains resolute in its commitment to its core subject matter. While recognizing the importance of diverse perspectives and acknowledging the interplay between finance and the broader world, it skillfully avoids losing sight of its primary objective: delivering essential financial news. This unwavering focus is a breath of fresh air in an era where so many news outlets tend to blur the lines between entertainment and substantive reporting.

This app has been degrading over the last months to the point when it’s easier to use the website. First, whenever I open it it always loading something for a few seconds and then says it can’t load. Then I tap try again and it loads it momentarily. Why can’t it show me the feed from last update? Why does it always have to wait? Then it asks me if I want to add topics. I already have topics, I use them, I know about them, stop bugging me with this feature. It’s so annoying that it’s easier to use the website.

Every time I open this app in the morning, I have to log in again. FWIW I log in using Google. Often in the afternoon or evening, I have to log in /again/. While the app is aggressive about pulling stories down for an offline edition (a genuine utility for my subway commute), this means I absolutely need to be connected to data the first time I open the app. At this point, that’s resulted in my having a little chore every morning off logging in as I walk to the subway.

Otherwise. FT’s coverage is what it is, and the app design is fine — nothing revolutionary, but it works.

Financial Times really thinks Japan should sell Nintendo? I say the UK should sell this trash of a rag sheet because Financial Times spews nothing but lies and clickbait from it’s idiotic writers who aren’t fit to flip burgers at McDonald’s which I’m sure next they’ll say America should sell McDonald’s because Financial Times doesn’t know a thing about the success of a company especially when it comes to Nintendo who has made millions on their intellectual properties like Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon and are in no need to be sold off unless they were really financially struggling. But you know what should be sold off? The Financial Times for it’s terrible journalism and clickbait.