Perigon - Total 360° News 17+

Update

I’m going to give this another chance and upgraded to a 4…will change to a 5 if promised fixes come through. Before the app began having issues it was phenomenal—wide range of articles, truly balanced selection, let’s you filter out those behind paywalls. I got an immediate response after my complaint, and fixes are in the works. I can be patient.

Original review:

I really want to like this app—apple news is beyond slanted and mostly subscription. But: it never works. It shows articles but when you select them it sends you to different articles. It shows there are 17 articles in a topic but when you click to see them, it takes you to a loading screen then freezes, the only way to leave that is shut the app down completely. Delete and reinstall doesn’t work. No way to contact creators except email that doesn’t work. Look elsewhere

Maybe but not yet

Another news app that collaborates multiple sources into one tidy place. I need this app (or another like it) to work, but it’s not there yet. I’ve used similar apps (News Break) that were full of junk like promotional links every other headline.

This one does a good job of filtering out the junk, but it has some issues...

You can’t mute topics (even though there is a muted topics section under “content controls”). You can only mute sources. I don’t want to mute everything from Newsweek (although maybe I should) but I do want to mute everything about Lindsay Lohan.

Local or regional news is absent.

The “My Activity” section can’t be altered. In a privacy obsessed world, this seems like a major oversight.

Still, I’m holding onto hope with this one. I anticipate that after a few improvement updates it will become my go to news app. Oh, did I forget to mention the good? Give it a try; I think you’ll think it was worth it.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, the local news feature has been added in the latest version — thanks for your suggestion! And you can already mute/follow the topics, we made this feature a bit easier to find (in the article tray menu). If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out at support@gawq.com

Lots of Potential - Not ready yet

There is a lot of potential for this app and I love their concept but it just feels like Beta right now. Many things don’t work. I’ve experienced several crashes. Lots of spinning balls waiting for content to load. Sometimes it doesn’t load and you have to force quit and start again. iPad is vertical only which is annoying. Favorites category doesn’t work, just spins forever on iPhone and iPad even with 1.01 bug fix update.

I also really don’t appreciate they make you sign up with email address AND phone number to actually use the app. Without signing up it’s not really useful at all. There’s no technical reason you would need to sign up, they just want to collect our info. Is that for a future sale of our personal info? They aren’t clear and they do leave that open to possibility on their website. I really cannot recommend this app until they make a lot of updates.