Ted App Reviews

I love TED talks. I want to watch them when I fly, which is often. However, what is the point of having a download option or section if they DONT DOWNLOAD?! No matter what I do I can't get them to download. Very very frustrating. Back to iTunes Documentaries I go..... please fix this immediately TED. You're hurting your band.

It still doesn’t work without crashing even after upgrade.

Not everything plays, if it even has a play button. A known video didn’t show up in searches. And this was in the first 3 minutes of use.

It took me over 5G data plan in a month, very disappointing.

Great app and even better content. Thank you.

Great app

This app is a must have if you like to learn! I love the new discover tab, where I’m able to seamlessly look through topics.

Marvelous

I’ve loved TED talks for years, and I love how easy it is to bookmark and enjoy my favorites from the app—and how fun it is to discover new talks. (Even the weekly app notifications are perfectly timed to make me want to check out something new without making me feel overwhelmed.) Great job! Edit 1: Oh my gosh, account sync is a WONDERFUL addition. Edit 2: LOVE the new look. Typography and layout are great. Thanks for all the hard work!

Newest update 6/25 won’t open. Won’t start period. Crashes on opening.

I love the talks, very little issues with buffering or what have you when connected to WiFi! Love the discovery area for relative talks! Just AWESOME!!!

This app needs to be downloaded more often. More people need to be aware of what goes on in the world and this app genuinely helps people improve their sense of compassion and understanding! I love it so much!

I use this app (well, *try*) to download TED talks for offline viewing (while on a plane, in dead zones, etc.) I have been using this app for years and can say that it is just as terrible at this as it always has been. Videos are routinely deleted without reason or warning, and sometimes videos that had been downloaded won't play. Worthless. After updating the app last week I opened it yesterday and received some message about the database being corrupt, and - guess what! - all my downloaded videos were deleted. Thanks TED. I guess the only way to win is to stop watching TED talks.

I rated this app 4 stars because it is easy to find videos you like and very easy to navigate the app in itself. However the like button doesn’t seem to work, no matter what I do it will not save the video as liked. The downloading has worked for me (I’ve only downloaded audio) so far. If they could just fix that little bug in my opinion it would be a five star app.

You have to keep the page you are downloading from open in order for the download to finish. Otherwise it will say it’s finished when it is really not. Also you should have the option to download at different resolutions to save space as by default they take up a lot of mb. Thanks for adding accounts to save my videos!

I love this app and can definitely get lost in it but with the newest update Ive noticed that things I previously had saved are no longer there. If i like something then go to my talks its not there.

I love TED, but this App the latest version is not working with the latest IOS 11.3.1. The problem is in the system setting it has no way to enable wireless data for the app, which means no internet for this app. Please fix it ASAP

This is great, now I can listen and sometimes even watch, when I’m not driving, to the talks. The app works great and the quality is amazing!

I can download, take talks with me offline. I have iPhone 7.

Great content, great app EXCEPT that talks are not actually saved to My Talks when that option is selected. There are some talks saved from before I created an account but now I can’t add anymore.

I love this app so much but there's a problem with playing the videos. The video stops after a few seconds and only the audio plays. I wonder why!!!

Easy to navigate, fascinating talks, really no major complaints.

LOVE THE APP. It has awesome features way better than just YouTubing like I used to! Totally worth it!!

Misleading implementation. Download doesn’t work.

Downloading doesn't work. When you try to download a talk, it just fills up a bar and whenever you want to watch it, it's not there. Download speed is very slow and it cost you a lot of bandwidth to re-download every time.

Having access to TED in a very easy format. Marvelous!

The best app. It’s so useful.

Apple devices is not the place to have a terrible user experience. - UX / UI: Mark after a video “watched” after it has been played so that I know which videos I’ve seen. Grey or mask the thumbnail in search results like YouTube does for previously viewed videos. - UX: Persistence. Keep my place if I watch part of a video and return to finish on *ANY* device. If I start a video and then watch another video it doesn’t keep the place of either video. #Awful. - UX: Continuity. I often start to watch a video on my iPad and switch to my iPhone. Same for a web browser on a macOS. The last spot needs to be retained like it is on Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and dozens of others. - UX: Bug. Picture in picture doesn’t *resize* to full screen when you use the 4 finger gestures to swipe back to TED from another app. You have a black screen with TED running in the corner. UX: Bug. Downloaded video wouldn’t play from iPad to Apple TV until I deleted the local download. UX: Bug. Captions turn off randomly. Captions needed to be turned back on multiple times while I was using AirPlay to play from iPad to Apple TV. These are basic video player items from 10 years ago. Either invest in a quality native iOS app experience or save your money and force everyone to use the website if you’re going to have a substandard user experience. #Failure #Bugs #ShowUpOrGiveUp #Shameful

The latest update has quite a few bugs. I am unable to add any videos to the “liked videos” or to “my list”. And I noticed all my previously liked videos do not show in the liked videos list.

This app has a lot of potential but needs work. The saved for later and liked talks un-save and un-like within a few seconds. When you select like the related talks change. Many bugs. Using iPad Pro 12.9 with updated OS.

I wish it would save videos you're halfway through

This is not an educational ap. This is a leftist propaganda machine. There are no original ideas or any other examples of what is described.

will stop using once my prior downloads are complete, since I can't control the watch order, select specific episodes for download later, or jump back/forward to a specific time within a video, or even see the exact minutes into video very often.

Can you watch the riddles from the YouTube channel

I installed the app and searched for a Ted talk by Olympia LePoint and it came up with nothing. Google “Olympia LePoint tedtalk” and it pops right up.

TED is excellent and this app was great until the most recent update. Now the app crashes upon every attempt to open on my SE. When the issue is fixed I'll amend this review to reflect my appreciation for TED talks. Thanks

In the ios version u can't display two subtitles at once unlike the android version. I hope developers can fix that.

I love watching the "Inspiring", the "Jaw Dropping" and "the Courageous" but why don't they show up in my Recents? Wait, where is "My Recents" and how do I share them with others? How do I get back and watch them, save them for later? Unheard of features in your apps and on AppleTV. What a shame. A huge value missing.

a) It's TED and TEDx. What's not to like? b1) There are bugs. What doesn't have any? b2) They take the trouble to chase down and fix the bugs. What's not to like?

I follow TED on fb and am able to watch wonderful talks. Sometimes I want to send them to my son who is not on fb. When I search for the talk on the app or even the same topic (today it was “How did Hitler rise to power”) which was not found in the app. So then I searched under just Hitler...and nothing! Come on! I find it impossible to believe that TED has nothing on Hitler, when I JUST WATCHED a talk on fb. What gives TED app? Super disappointed with this app.

When I’m facing a situation that requires knowledge, wisdom and guidance I can always find relevant talks that meet my needs and motivate. I also use it to think about what I believe and whether or not there’s another viewpoint that can enhance or alter my opinions. I also utilize them in training meetings.

I tried reporting this problem to the support page but there is no support page. Its just general ted support without any way to reach the developers. So I will report the problem here. When I select the app, it moves to the foreground for a second and then immediately moves to the background. Its is unusable in this form.

I downloaded this to listen to talks while driving. Well, I have to click each video instead of having on a continuous playlist. Very dangerous while driving. There are pre-made playlist but that doesn’t mean there are all good. Please make a “play all” talks in the list feature. Some downloads work, others didn’t.

Please bring back the surprise me/ random video feature. The app itself is good. Sometimes it doesn’t let videos download.

I just lost all my likes, history and everything. Thx TED

Love love love the TED talks. I would play the newest until I ran out and then use the Surprise Me feature. Loved it. Pick a subject, a time frame, and it would randomly put a playlist together that was around the time you picked. Latest update does t have it. 😢😢

Bring back surprise me!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love my TED app. I’ve encountered very few bugs, but when they do occur they are remedied quickly. I also love that you don’t prompt me to leave a review and interrupt my listening time. Thanks for all the great talks at my fingertips.

When trying to search for a topic, such as “white privilege,” the response is “sorry, we couldn’t quite find anything like that.” So, when trying other searches such as “black poverty,” only two talks show up as results. When searching these two topics alone through an internet (google) search engine on “Ted Talks”, hundreds of results reveal themselves...I would have thought that an app would provide the same number of results, if it more. Poorly designed app!

The app crashes right after start every time on new iPad Pro 12.9“ with iOS12. Please fix.

Keeps crashing every time I search something it’s very frustrating

- needs a setting for only downloading via Wi-Fi. – need a progress bar to show what is being downloaded and what has not been downloaded. (One of Ted’s talks state-owned Porten a progress bar is. Irony that they don’t take their own advice.) - videos should be grouped by categories to make it easy to watch similar videos. For example if I want to learn about astronomy, all those videos should be grouped together, and easy to find. I’m giving the such a low rating not because the app is good but because I believe this is the only way the developer will take notice of my comments and fix the limitations I find in the app.

I love how this app is set up, and the content is incredible, but I seemed to have a problem downloading content. I would have like 15 talks downloaded in my list, but when I look again, I only have nine. Not only this, but several of my successfully downloaded talks that didn’t mysteriously disappear just didn’t play and ran into an error. Overall, while the content is very interesting, I had to take a star off for the downloading issue.

Thank you

When you clicked on download, the talks and playlists are marked as downloaded immediately, yet there is no video pulling down, and when you need to watch offline, it just hangs and hangs without giving a reason.

So happy! VoiceOver reads the captions for reading braille. There is access for deaf-blind!

I love TED talks. There are a few glitches in the app, but nothing that keeps me from loving it. It’s a great way to learn things from new and interesting perspectives.

The TED app is a great place to get all the talks you want together and organize different preferences. You can even get random talks based upon what you’re trying to see and how much time you have.

Great content, very user friendly.

This is an awesome way to view TED talks.

Only app I’ve ever reviewed Bc I love ted

The TED app is not only full of interesting information in and of itself, the app has been optimized beautifully for the iPad, even my Pro 12.9. The addition of PiP was fantastic. Keep up the great work!

So many amazing talks on a variety of subjects.

Still can't bookmark a video in the app. Log in is missing password manager integration and Facebook login uses the old web-based method. Come on guys, this is basic stuff!

Sat there for 20mins while it “downloaded” three videos on to find when it had “finished” it did download anything at all. No way of knowing if it had downloaded, no box or notification

The app was much better before- Why going BACKWARDS? -why there is no feedback for download progress? -why I cannot anymore do "play all"? -why downloads are not downloaded even though it shows? I hope you can solve these simple common problems and greatly improve TED reaching many people but not fail because in 2018 one cannot make a fully functional app to watch and download.

I love the surprise me part. :)

It had been several years since I had checked on TED and I could not believe the transition. From world class cutting edge science to mystic babble and motivational speakers. I guess that pays the bills, but I’m out of here.

Falsely indicates downloaded when video isn’t. Doesn’t play when offline. Confusing and frustrating.

Should be required for many...it opens you up to a world that’s already occurring, but you probably have no idea. “Amazeballs!”

The Apple TV app needs an easy way to access your Liked videos. Right now, there’s no way.

Useful

If you can let us play these videos offline after we “downloaded” them, this app would definitely would be a 5 Star one.

Even with the updated version I can’t get the videos to download successfully for off-line viewing. I have a dozen or so videos supposedly downloaded in my downloads section, but when I am in airplane mode I cannot watch those videos. There’s also no indication regarding the progress of the download. After you click on the download video button, it just shows up in your downloads section. But there’s no indication how much is downloaded. And there’s no way to refresh the download or restart it.

Excellent, must have app in every phone, fast, stable and great UI Thank you

This is a great app. I love listening to these talks and learning new perspectives. The app is incredibly user friendly and aesthetically pleasing.

If you love be ted talks get this app.

Ted talks has literally changed my life. Bringing discussions and information to the masses free of charge will help revolutionize the country. I think of the adage, if it is not accessible to the poor, it is neither revolutionary nor necessary. And here we are: ted = accessible = revolutionary and necessary.

i love this app but recently i have not been able to download videos 😣can u fix it please🙏

Ted has always been the window into deep and inspiring talks. Will always support TED.

Beware! The Download feature does not work well! First, the app does NOT download the video or audio in the background on wifi so you have to make sure you keep the app open! Second (and even worse) when you click on "My Talks" then choose downloads, it will show your talk as being downloaded when in fact it isn't! (the talk has only started to download or is only partially downloaded). This means that you will consume a lot of unplanned bandwidth when you try to view the "downloaded" talk (which may cost you a lot of money) or you won't be able to access it all all if you don't have an internet connection. It's a poorly designed app. They should have a "pending download" section in "My Talks" and enable the app to download in the background when on Wifi. There should also be a progress bar when the talk is being downloaded.

TED should be broadcasted in every part of the world, free of charge. It should be a given right to have access to this information. PS: Love the notes you guys write when you push an update to the app store! Makes keeping the TED updated, makes me feel like you’re building an app for the users and followers and subscribers😄 (in comparison to Facebook which seems to only make an app for the masses 🙄) Keep up the good work! ❤️

Instead of wasting your free time watching teens faceplant on skateboards or russian motorists attacking each other with baseball bats over lane changing skills watch something here that might actually make you smarter.

This is a video player and therefore dark mode should be the default. Look at Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO, YouTube, your own TED STAGE, etc. Everything that plays videos defaults to a dark / black background for a very good reason. It is relaxing to your eyes. Switching from a dark TED stage to an obnoxious BRIGHT WHITE background makes me stop watching TED talks on my iPad. Especially if you’re trying to watch in bed. #DarkMode

Where’s the surprise me button?

That figures. Question is - WHY? After all, it's just a video!!!! Guess I'll have to start using YouTube.

Second only to podcasts as a learning resource

This app is well designed, recommend it Use it enjoy it 🌹

can not play downloads, solve please. iPhone

I see this application is the most important one for connecting people stories to others.

I actually love watching TED talks but I have trouble adding them to my Watchlist on my phone app. Every time I click the little plus button I see a check mark indicating the video was added but when I go to my list it’s never there. I go back to the video and see the plus sign again as though it was never added. Please fix this so that I can give this app 5 stars.

The app is great. Its easy, simple, and sweet. Hands down The the notification sound for his app has to be my absolute favorite thing about the the app. I wish there was an option of setting it as the default sound for all my notifications on my device.

Love TED but it would be nice to search a topic by Speaker’s name (first or last or either). Also it’s strange that I can’t set great results by searching by topic. I can get better results searching YouTube for “Law of Attraction, TED talks” (for instance) than I can directly on the TED app.

After last update. W ios12. Will not open. ???

Ted talks are quite interesting and there is a large variety of them to watch. I commonly start videos only to find that I have seen them before and I wish there was some way to state that it was watched and just a date saying when

Solid performance.

i just download this app but i can not see on the screen who is talking i don't know if it's my data or the app it's self

I can’t make the video landscape when I flip my iPhone X, which makes them difficult to enjoy!

I love this app because of the variety of videos on it and the surprise me feature which always brings me interesting videos I haven’t watched before. It also has a clean user interface and well developed search engine. However, whenever I play my downloaded videos offline, I am able to play one but the next one does not play because of a playback error. Sometimes it plays once I restart my iPad, but most of the time it still does not work. Please fix this!

Can’t open, crashes

Keeps on crashing

I've been using this app for many years and the one thing that's remained constant is it's inability to do the one thing I wanted it to do. Use this app if you enjoy downloading talks to watch offline, then pulling out your phone on the airplane and seeing no talks downloaded. This has probably happened to me a dozen times now. I think it's time I bid farewell to TED talks, if not for this than because the quality of the talks has tanked over the years.

This is very good application, I try learning English and German languages for listening skill.

It crashes the moment I load it.

Wathcing TED talks motivate me to take a step further. I like to watch people who know what they want to do and how to do it. Thanks to TED app, now I can watch those people everywhere I go.

1. Mark talks that have already been seen. (Seen=90% Watched) 2. Add the ability to tag and star talks personally. (And filtering search results using them.) This helps immensely in rewatching talks, NOT watching some talks, and recommending talks to friends.

The download feature of the app is perhaps the most important one, and it just doesn’t work. So many times I had queued up a few videos to watch on a plane, and got burned each time as I realized the videos did not download properly. There is no indication of download progress, status, or controls to start/pause/continue, or prioritize downloads. You click download and then it’s a complete mystery. Very poor programming.

This app big gay

Currently the app freezes every time I try and open it.

...

TED is an awesome place to gain insight on the world around us! The development and social movements going on right under our nose become evident when I am exposed to TED. Thank you for all that you do, keeping it free of charge, just to make our society better.

I really enjoy this app. I wish I was in a position where I could utilize it more. Easy to navigate through.

Need Apple Watch app and complication

I love this app! It's great when you have a little down time or when you're in the car. My favorite feature is the "surprise me" option. Because of it, I've listened to a ton of talks that I normally wouldn't have clicked on and learned more than would've otherwise.

Great app! But:: The only thing missing is the option to read the transcript of any video. Currently the only option is to open the link in a browser..

I love the app, love TED talks, but when I try to cast it on my tv (google chromecast) from my iphone (7) it won’t even give me the possibility to do so, but then if I try the same thing with my ipad mini it’ll cast it with no problem, (on the ipad) the “cast” icon appears on the top right corner of the screen, while on the iphone it won’t even appear, please guys fix this, I really like this app, it almost hurts to give just 1 star. Thank you

The download feature doesn’t work at all. Any solution for this?

Great app!!

Can’t bookmark or download

Everything is beautifully designed in this app, and the content is terrific. However, there is this one thing that’s bothering me which is the lack of some of the TEDx talks. There are numerous great TEDx talks spreading wonderful ideas, and it would be amazing if you included more TEDx talks or even created a section for them in the app. Thank you 🙏🏼

I love watching the "Inspiring", the "Jaw Dropping" and "the Courageous" but why don't they show up in my Recents? Wait, where is "My Recents" and how do I share them with others? How do I get back and watch them, save them for later? Unheard of features in your apps and on AppleTV. What a shame. A huge value missing.

Hi! I love TED talks, but love to listen to then at 2x-3x speed. Could you include that functionality in your app? Cheers!

I love TED with a passion, it has helped me change so much in my life for the better. The app however does need some changes but the two are mutually exclusive as far as I’m concerned. I watch TED the most when I’m away from home and lately (I’ve downloaded the latest update) I’ve not been able to watch or listen to any of the talks. Please fix the app, TED is so inspirational! I only gave 4 stars because of how the app is behaving lately.

Having been waiting many months for the download function to work, this version kind of works, yet with many bugs. 1. Crashes when downloading about five or more playlists. 2. When come back, the downloading function will not be able to resume properly. 3. When you play a video, even if it’s a downloaded video, the downloading function stopped. 4. When you first started download a talk, the downloading button shows a circular progress bar. But when you come back from the middle, like crashes, or shutdown, the progress button is gone, and not responsive. 5. No indicators on the download status, I will never know which video has finished download so that I could view offline. 6. No pause, resume 7. No control for individual videos within a playlist. 8. No background downloading.

I’ve noticed that some speakers that I have watched videos on YouTube giving TED talks are not to be found on the app, and the thing that they have in common is that they are not leftist thinkers, but moderate and right leaning thinkers. I’ve also found that the talks about Christianity several of them are anti Christian and anti God. I also found that no talks with Judaism as a topic cannot be found, but many talks about Islam empowering people and complaining about the hardships they face in America. I understand that people have different views, and that’s what’s great. But to have an app that features talks that are by people of the same mindset and not other one’s is a disservice to people to be exposed to all kind of ideas.

Upon attempting login within the Ted app, I’m brought to an infinite “syncing..” screen. I’ve tried force closing, rebooting, reinstalling, still every time I attempt sign in I’m stuck at the “syncing..” screen. Update: Still cannot sign in, same problem on latest version of the app- 5.1 published on 7/25/18. Using an iPhone X

I love TED Talks and listening to multiple a week on YouTube. So figured they must have an app and wouldn’t ya know. My major issue is with the search tool. 90% of the words I enter into the search bar reveals no results. These are words that I know for a fact there are talks on. I’m not sure if the words has to be in the title of the the talk, but most words I enter I’m sure are in the title. This makes the app useless as the only way I have to search for specific talks is a very long drawn out process that probably will not reveal accurate results either. Major fail TED talks, major fail :(

The project manager for this app is totes hot.

I’d really like a simple way to download audio from talks and queue like a podcast, to play in the background, while on my commute. Huge inventory that is hard to enjoy.

Really an amazing app for so many situations: in the car, while walking, on lunch break, etc. Truly evocative, thought provoking, insightful and inspiring talks. These will speak to you, in more than one way, and you will find yourself thinking of the sincerity and grace with which these people share. The hallmark of a genuine gift from the speakers, imho.

For the most part this app does exactly as you’d expect. Easily browse videos and playlists, and the “Surprise Me” feature is pretty cool. There are a few things I’d like to see improved though. The video player lacks the swipe gestures that other’s do (pinching to exit a video, for instance) and I think there are yet more ways to navigate and filter TED Talks that couple be employed. Overall rather satisfied though.

The TED app is by far my favorite and most used app on my phone ... this app is life changing!!!!!!

Your app is a great app and I use it every morning when working out to get “educated”. One big flaw is when I choose a video to watch and I see on the right hand side another video in “Related Talks” I’m interested to watch afterward there is no way to find it again. Every time I finish the main video the “Related Talks” have changed again and I’m not able to watch the other video I was interested in. Even more so: There is no way to add a video in “Related Talks” to your watch list. That makes actually the “Related Talks” section pointless since I can never get back and watch what was suggested to me. Please, I would appreciated if you can make it work that the “Related Talk” videos are NOT changing every time I finish a video or add the main video to the watch list but rather that I’m able to go back and be able to watch one of the suggested videos. Thank you.

Was hoping to love this app but’s it’s horrible. I can never find specific speakers when I do a search. Content really needs to be updated. The talks freeze at times. Although I download the audio, I wish can use other apps while the talks are playing.

You have a serious bug on iPhone 6 iOS 12.1.2. All the tabs including the segment section cause the app crash on Tap

I used to love Ted Talks. The app itself is fine and works great but it is slowly becoming a globalist tool to push liberalism down our throats. With topics on alt-right, transgender, climate change and fake news.

Playback failed. If I download the video, it cannot playback. But if I erase it, then it can be played streaming

Impossible to connect with Facebook to sync my playlists.

Please fix it.

I live this app but can you guys please enable full screen videos on the iPhone X as an option it would look and feel so much better !!!!!!!!!! Thank you 😁 and it would be awsome

Great talks, but the feed keeps breaking up, making it hard to follow the talks.

A great app with a purpose. The work put into bringing us all these talks is well appreciated

App is great Nd contents are marvelous, just plz fix the download bug and add functionality to the related videos Thanks