9to5Mac — Breaking Tech News 4+

I happen to like this app because I am able to get official Apple news and rumors. I also look at articles within this application. I hope they keep up the great work. Also, if you are a voiceover user as I am, the articles are very accessible and easy to read. You can double tap on an article or articles you wish to read with voiceover and everything is right to you. I hope they keep this up and great work within the app and behind the scenes.

I will be focusing my review on the free version of this application. The 9 to 5 Mac is a solid Apple News application in terms of design but I find it to a bit lacking in detail as well as content. To start off with the positive the interface is simple to use with a smooth scroll down experience and a high quality background to read articles from. At the end of articles is You Tube related content and the ability to read more site featured content with a link to the website. Users can modify the interface theme and keep it light, make it dark or choose the automatic which I guess is based on the time period it is being used. The drawbacks include articles not being able to be saved to read later as well as the app not having a filter for commentary opinion pieces nor product sale pages separate from the daily news/rumor content. To read opinion pieces exclusively users have to go out of the app to the website. To me 9 to 5 Mac works best as a compliment to Apple News sources such as Apple Insider and iMore since they tend to give a more detailed analysis of the industry in whole while 9 to 5 keeps you up to date on what is happening and rumors on what could be coming down the line.

I’ve been using this app for a few years and it’s always been easy to use and offers a better experience than the website in my opinion. However, it had not been updated in a while so I was thrilled to see it listed to be receiving an update. The look is new and modern, which was a welcome change. However, they made one big change: upon clicking on an article, it tells you that you only have 3 more full articles that are ad-free. This wouldn’t be an issue except after you read 3 full articles, they require you to either subscribe to their premium service for $1.99 a month or use the web browser to read the article. There’s no way to see the full article on the app and just deal with ads.

This is a huge step backwards and will cause me to delete the app entirely and stop reading their website. I can deal with having ads on the page, I just don’t see the need to use the app if it’s telling me to use the web browser if I don’t want to subscribe to their service. $24 a year isn’t breaking the bank, it’s the principle of it where the change came out of left field and gives the user one impression before revealing the truth.