Npr App Reviews

When listening to NPR the app freezes frequently when I try to switch from one station broadcast to a different station. It will not respond to any “ tap”. I have to delete app, reinstall app, then reselect my 4 different radio stations. Sometimes 4-5 times a day.

Weekend Edition needs to go in the featured programs section, replacing morning edition on Sat & Sun instead of being buried with other programs. Also why did you take away the ability to create a play list? Now if I stop listening to a show like morning edition and later want to return to it, I have to restart from the beginning rather that just go to my playlist and pickup where I left off. And there’s a problem with Google maps that causes NPR app to shut off whenever Maps gives directions ( not a problem for Waze or other maps services). Overall this version seems to trade off having app buttons just for looks for a number of functionalities that worked well and are now missing.

It just doesn’t work. Most of the time it just sits there with the spinning wheel of death. When it does work, I can’t even find the shows I want to listen to. Any NPR app that doesn’t simply let me listen to yesterday’s full Morning Edition with a single click is a failure. Oh, and did I mention, it doesn’t work? Sustaining member of my local station and huge fan overall.

Once again NPR has broken something that didn’t need to be fixed. The new app doesn’t have a playlist feature anymore (now promised for “later this fall.). You can no longer share individual segments. The hourly news update is often late, sometimes by a few minutes but sometimes by hours. I don’t understand why NPR, which relies on our financial support, can’t leave well enough alone rather than repeatedly frustrating loyal listeners.

I did not use the app to listen to live broadcast. I used the playlist feature to create a list of stories I wanted to hear in the order I wanted to hear them. I used the playlist version of the app every day. Without a user-defined playlist feature the app is useless. I would have given it zero stars if Apple allowed it.

While you still remain my favorite source for National news; this new app is not as easy to navigate as the old.

This latest update takes away the ability to create a playlist or share stories with friends. It looks like they found a way to listen to less NPR and get my news elsewhere. Too bad as I have been an avid listener member for many years. Latest update- it crashes frequently, skips parts of stories or skips stories entirely. All problems that I did not have with old app. Please bring it back.

New app is terrible. What happened to playlist feature. With no playlist feature and no sleep timer option, there is no way to listen for a set period of time to the stories of interest.

I miss the ability to make playlists because I like to take out politics stories. and the distinction between stories you can play versus read are gone. :( Given the pretty overwhelming feedback from app users about the desire for a playlist function, Im really surprised that the npr has not even addressed it any of these updates or comments. I thought npr cared. :(

Bring back the playlist!

I like the layout of the new app but it is missing my favorite feature which is to create a playlist of the different shows you want to listen to.

I have been avoiding updating to this App on my phone as I have it on other devices and it’s terrible. There is no search function on this app. Its not easy to navigate or listen to older stories or programs. Today I woke up to find the old app gone and this one here. So terrible.

Hasn’t loaded a single story on the main screen in over a week. And it won’t go to anywhere else. Seriously? Don’t you pay attention to your app? I’m running on an iPhone 7plus.

I don't normally rate apps, but had to give my two cents and complain that there is no landscape view which is a real pain! Why????

Now it’s been changed to be like the NPR One app, and seems specifically designed to make it _harder_ to get to the stories one actually WANTS to hear. Before the change I could go and throw all the stories from today’s ATC into a playlist, and even edit the playlist to remove stories one’s already heard and/or doesn’t care about/doesn’t have time for. BTW, the Android version still looks/works like the old, good one.

Fix the font size of the headlines on the front page, they are way too small. There is a font size setting in the app but this won't affect the headlines on the main page. Update: two years after my complaint the problem still exist. Lowered my rating to one star. I barely can read the front page even at the largest font size setting.

I wish I’d never updated! The playlist is gone. The program list is gone. No way to curate your own playlist. Slow to put the days news programs on the app.

UPDATE SEPT. 2018 v 4.1.1 When I finally updated iOS I then updated about 20-30 of my apps as well. Only this one, NPR.app, was grossly worse. No longer possible to have my list of a dozen or two local affiliates! Now you can have just one “primary” which shows TWICE at the same time(!?) – only the call-sign and a Play arrow – YET takes over almost half the screen(!). Sometimes that chosen Primary no longer appears, and I have to choose it AGAIN. Those are just examples of the screen layouts and dysfunctionality of this app. PAST VERSION REVIEW: Since at least early 2016 NPR & its many hundreds of affiliates have never mentioned the existence of this app, but instead they advocate for the app "NPR One". However, since I have been using NPR News in every way possible & at all hours of every day, I cannot imagine why I would want to change. An example: sometimes I miss a show broadcast on my local WHYY radio station. In the app I just go to a station I have saved in its "Favorites" which is in a later time zone, so I can hear it "live" (in broadcast sequence of national & that region's local stories). So with one tap on WBEZ or KUT or KCFR I not only hear ATC but also incidentally learn of its StateImpact's focus, local traffic and weather. IOW, it doesn't narrowly channel me into just my own areas of interest! Keeps my mind challenged & active.

Where’s the search button on the newest release? This seems like a major oversight.

I takes about 30 seconds from my entering the app for it glitch out and crash.

The new app drops the playlist feature including your archived articles in the old app. I can’t believe they did this. It would be like Amazon releasing an update that wiped out your purchase history and made it unrecoverable. It was also the most useful feature on the old app. Another example of the new being worse than the old.

For listening to your local NPR station, I’d highly recommend using TuneIn Radio. Much better user experience. Problems with this app: 1. Still loses connection when Wi-Fi status changes. If the phone picks up a new Wi-Fi network or if it loses the one you’re on, the app will crash about half of the time. 2. No playlists for shows. If you want to listen to, say, the day’s All Things Considered, you cannot create a playlist of the stories, you have to cycle through them in order. And when the app crashes, or if you just leave the app for too long, you lose your progress and have to reload the show and fast forward back to the story you were at. Most podcast apps remember where you are in each story, even after closing the app. 4. Play, fast forward, rewind buttons on the iPhone lock screen work only half of the time. 5. Obnoxious NPR One app commercial which plays as a part of any listening session. The only app worse than the NPR news app is NPR One. The commercial even says “Listening to the news should be as easy as turning on your radio” which is honestly Orwellian considering the difficulty in using these apps. 6. Buttons within the app seem like pretend buttons that work some times and not others. Can be sitting on a perfectly good Wi-Fi or cell network and will have to keep mashing the play button or restart the app to get it to play. 7. Can’t customize menu or create a favorites list of frequently listened to shows. This app does a real disservice to the amazing quality of NPR news.

Terrible update .... I miss the old app

First, the performance is abysmal and the functionality is nothing short of non deterministic. You click on a station and maybe it plays within 15 sec and maybe you just have to kill the app. This thing has been crap from the first version since the rewrite. Where is the favorites list? Why won’t it just play a live stream? You may wonder what happened to my contribution to npr...

Freezes, fails, unresponsive buttons, drops out when you switch from WiFi to cellular data or vis versa. Trash.

Absolute obfuscation from NPR, saying the playlist is gone and that the awkward new interface will stay. I have stopped my yearly contribution to NPR and my local station. Currently braving a fund drive here AND I AM NOT GIVING ANYTHING. Hey NPR, didn’t think about that did you, that anything you do could affect others? Meh, thought not. For years the previous NPR app versions have long been my favorite way to catch up with news. Now it's come time for me to delete the app. Absolutely foolish design and worse yet, removal of the most valued features. Not just a tweak, they’re gone. The continued updates do NOT RESTORE THESE FUNCTIONS. i am deeply disappointed in NPR as an entire organization. Yeah it’s worth saying again: i have *stopped* contributing to NPR and my local station. The station has to raise most of their money for NPR programs and I want NPR to pay attention, therefore WUOT-FM will receive NO money from now on. The previous 3.x had playlist and easily negotiable selections. Idiots developed this app. Fools now defend it and are protecting something else. ###

Being back search! As a busy mom of 5, I often can only catch quick snippets of the news when I listen to NPR in my car. In the past, I was able to keyword search for those stories I missed, on the app. This was everything to me!

I love npr. I HATE this app. It’s flaky and often doesn’t work. Im unable to listen the my local station any more. It instead goes to a station 60 miles away that doesn’t have all the broadcasting I like. The old app was perfect. Why this new obviously inferior version?

I was disappointed after this update. The old app was so much more easy with the ability to swipe to the next story. It also had no adds. NPR with ads! I suppose the graphics and such are more modern but that’s not what I look for in NPR. I contribute several hundred a year to my local station, but sure hope none of it went to this app. I still use it, with pain, but my wife deleted it on her phone.

Maybe I have access to the same content as before, but I can’t tell. When I use the app on my tablet, I have more control over what stories I want to listen to and from what programs. I could create a queue which now I am on able to in the current app! Why? To me, this app took a couple steps back; hopefully, a future revision or new version will take several steps forward.

I really love NPR and think this updated app would be much better with the return of the playlist function! Thanks for reading!

So many things wrong with the app. Too complex to list all the quirks.

I have quit using this app because I can no longer make my own playlist. I used to listen to the stories that I missed during the day. Now I can only do one at a time. I just listen to the stories through the Podcast App.

I really want to this app to improve as I value easy access to the many terrific NPR programs and podcasts. But the current version has too many serious flaws and bugs that should have been obvious to the developers before it was launched. The inability to “favorite” particular programs is a huge oversight. To find a specific program that I listen to regularly, I’m forced to...click “On Demand” then scroll to “More NPR shows and programs” then click “More” the scroll to find my program (e.g. NPR Politics) then click that. Then click the latest show. Six distinct steps. Every time. To listen to a single show. I listen to “Live Radio” daily, and typically one of the three local NPR stations. There is an option to save a station as “Primary”. One would expect this would save that station. Nope. No idea why this option is presented, because I need to choose a station every time. And despite the fact I have location services enabled for the app, I’m forced to click the “Find stations near me” button every time. If I’m on LTE vs WiFi, I don’t get an accurate list. And, as many others have mentioned, the removal of the playlist feature that was available in previous versions is a huge disappointment. The look and feel of the app is clean and modern - but it feels as though there was a serious failure to adequately user test this release.

Love the updated NPR News APP! NPR is my favorite source for news! The updated app has more useful information for listeners. The topics tab was a great addition. I do miss seeing the frequency listed with the stations. I would like to see the NPR 24hr Program Stream and the All Songs Considered 24hr music streams added as well. In addition listeners cannot find stations located in Fort Wayne IN. For some reason WBOI and WBNI are no longer accessible from the app and the NPR News as well. For some reason WBNI is listed as Roanoke not sure why.

Bring back playlists and give us the option to see more than 1 day of content Update: it’s September 2018 now and still no playlist/queue function. Super basic feature in a media player application. What gives?

I don’t sign in to the radio so no it isn’t needed

Do not like the new app. Deleted it.

New problem. 1. Load the app, click on an article, read it, everything seems OK. Leave that article. 2. Click on an unread article, and get a white screen, as though it’s loading, but no message is displayed. 3. Click

This app has become worthless. More than half of the time, stories do not load and I’m stuck just looking at a white screen. Deleting the app and restarting my phone do nothing to alleviate the issue. The old NPR was more stable and much nicer to read the news on.

I always enjoyed listening to NPR live streaming on my phone. However, with this newer app, the live stream rarely works. It is not an issue with connectivity or my phone, it is definitely the app. I’m disappointed.

I like NPR’s coverage for the most part, but this app isn’t even searchable! Horrible.

Have to keep spending time to re find my stations. Fix this.

I deleted the NPR app five months ago after that horrific "update" and I've not missed it for one second. I have also deleted my donations to NPR stations. Previously the app was the only way I listened to NPR. Since then I have found numerous other better sources for news and culture, and I suggest you do the same. It is evident that NPR is not listening and they are not bringing back those features that you might miss so you may as well move on!

The original app was great. This one doesn’t have a good interface, doesn’t load, doesn’t search for stations. Need I go on? Loved the old one. PS: The music app is so out of date that Apple tells us to delete it.

I use this app every day to and from work to listen to live radio from my local station. Every day I hope it works properly but am disappointed. It takes multiple clicks to even bring up live radio, that’s assuming it works before I have to close it and reopen it once again. When it’s streaming, the stream will suddenly cut out in the middle of a program and go seconds to minutes without returning. How am I to enjoy the news I love from NPR with glitchy app and streaming?!!! Please fix!!

This app (for iPhone) got worse several updates (last redesign) ago. They took away autostart, auto last play. Now it takes several clicks (plus waits) to get to your favorite station to play. Also, persistent bugs ( without touching device, app switches to different stream (same station). This happens everyday. You all took a product that worked well, and by design, is more difficult to use.

Why cant you fix the obvious??? Stuff like enlargeable photos and connections to videos that are mentioned but never is there a connection or sound. Or how about the ability to enlarge photos and turn the reading sideways for people with bad eyes? Also with this new app I cant select or copy a word to use dictionary.

Here’s an idea instead of releasing a half finished product, wait until you can put all the features from the old app in this one. What kind of an upgrade removes features? It’s not like people were clamoring for a redesign. Stupid.

This new version is terrible... are they actively trying to stymie diffusion of their coverage? I can’t forward individual audio files of stories to friends (which I did a lot), i have to go through topics individually to find new or trending stories across shows.. it’s not user friendly! Change it back! I’m never one to trash new iterations because there’s a learning curve.. these changes just don’t make sense.

This has been going on for months, and yet there have been no fixes. I would love to listen to some live radio on my phone, but it seems that any time I select my station, the app freezes. Please fix this; it’s really annoying!

Bring back the old app! Too difficult to play live radio and switch between stations. On demand also makes no sense.

Why does the primary station reset every few days, requiring the user to reselect their initial selection. It’s a relatively minor issue, but it’s been like this since the last overhaul, and I can’t help but haaaate it.

Bring back the ability to create playlists! Seriously though, it’s really weird how in the new version there’s no clear way to share the story that’s currently playing.

I listen to npr constantly, and I almost never use this app anymore. You cannot find stories that you missed on the radio. You can no longer create playlist or listen to shows not on the local station. You can’t download stories to listen to later or when you are not connected. That is all true for listening on the radio too, but it means the app does not really add anything to the radio or podcasts. It is marginally more useful than npr one but that is an extremely low bar. Ideally an app would exist that would allow me to review news stories I have missed, create a playlist, download them and listen to them when I had time.

Love the "on air now" feature. By the time I've left the car, the story is his at that place on the mobile app.

Why did they take a perfectly app and ruin it. It’s useless. I’ve switched to TuneIn Radio and PRI. Luckily, they haven’t reined the iPad app yet.

The new NPR app will not allow me to stream anything “on demand”. I can stream “live radio” and that’s all! I have been streaming NPR on my iPhone for YEARS without issue and as soon as this new app design came out, everything went to hell. No technical support. No answers. Very disappointed!

For all of us that feel jilted and abused by NPR, just let it go! There's an infinite number of other sources for news arts and culture that are way better than NPR. It's clear that they are not bringing back the playlist, and the search options and the other functions that made it so valuable. For the hundreds and thousands of people that are deleting this now useless NPR News app, may I suggest the following alternative apps for news and culture: BBC iPlayer Radio Simple Radio Radio Garden KCRW KQED WNYC Would love to hear other suggestions! Tune In Radio used to be great but it was similarly destroyed by app designer idiots a few years ago trying to give it a social media interface - another example of me deleting an app and moving on.

8/9/18. I deleted app 2 months ago but keep coming back to see if devs have fixed the problems—apparently not. :-( Really miss NPR! It’s sad they have so little respect for their listeners—& such lame excuses for gutting an app so many of us loved. 6/2/18. Have tried to be patient for almost two months, now—I’m sorry, but no playlist is a deal breaker. Very sad—I will miss NPR. Deleting. 5/13/18: Developers, I appreciate your response, but it’s been over a month now & no fix in sight. Couldn’t you just give us the old app back while you take the new one back to the drawing board? 4/16/18: Just installed an update to the update & as far as I can see the app is exactly the same. PLEASE bring back (at a minimum!) the playlist function & the ability to have multiple “favorite” stations—the app is useless without them. The only thing I’m using it for at this point is the hourly news in On Demand, & it’s not worth keeping just for that. Not deleting *yet* because I’m hoping you will fix this (or bring back the old app separately—I would happily pay to get it back!!). Would be so sad to say goodbye to NPR! 4/8/18: Just updated the app & I’m so sorry I did—you took away everything I used daily & substituted nothing except a live feed allowing only *one* station. App now seems much more like NPR One (which I tried briefly & disliked). Please bring back the ability to have more than one live-stream station and (especially) please bring back playlists! Like others here, I generally selected “Add all to playlist” & then deleted stories I wasn’t interested in (e.g. sports). Also, please return “On demand” to “list” format (or offer as option) so we can see more than two (besides the hourly newscast) at a time. Your graphics may be pretty but I care much more about functionality.

I used your old app every day to listen to news through a playlist I created. Since getting the new app I have only listened to NPR once. Please bring the play list back.

It simply stopped working.

ohhhh, the old app soooo needed an upgrade, but why can’t i have a playlist!???? this will drastically drop the amount of time I listen. I would add stories to a playlist and have it ready for a drive or whatever time i could. nooow, keep having to go to phone after every story. noooooooo. #bringbacktheplaylist #nprnerd

Update The comments by the developers sound clueless and self serving. Who hired these guys? Scroll down. Universally bad reviews. So glad I never updated. Old app is amazing: sparse, functional. It’s like Craigslist. It’s lean and easy to navigate. I have often thought that it was amazing during the last few years because the developers resisted all The unnecessary graphic bloat that plagues so much on the internet I’ll never update, and delete if what I have stops working New app is awful, triumph of graphics over substance, and don’t get me started on public radio privacy policies. After stating strongly how much we are valued and our policy is respected take a look at NYC and NPR on the web at how many tracking cookies are on their sites. Holy Moly! So, found a way to go back to old app. Will never update again until someone at NPR decides to listen to their listeners.

Very disappointing ‘upgrade’. There’s no more playlist and the stories are organized according to broad topics. It’s impossible to find the shows we like. NPR’s stories are hard to classify in a simple ‘business’, ‘national’, ‘technology’ or ‘culture’ category. A story on Steve Jobs could fit in all 4 categories. And what’s the point of the app without a playlist?

The two easiest ways to start playing the National Newscast just evaporated. Please bring back the app's 3D Touch and Widget accessibility, or at a minimum, warm people before they upgrade. 8/6 update: Rating bumped up a star after 3D Touch was returned. Thanks. Now bring back the widget access for 5 stars, please.

I don’t know why you removed the feature where you could bookmark stories to listen to later. It’s annoying when app developers take away useful features.

The search function on the old app was an integral and important feature and I am very disappointed that the new app has done away with it. Finding it impossible to find content about specific topics and very frustrating. Please fix this issue !

After trusting and supporting NPR from its infancy, of course all new app updates were welcomed. That trust was violated with this new format that keeps the user from having access to and selecting which of the many wonderful programs to listen to in a playlist. I wish I had never updated.

Our family is aggravated, frustrated and disappointed with the lack of an ability to curate the stories we listen to. With our 7year old, we need to skip stories about: children abused by priests, kids shot in schools, kids shot at gamers conferences and the many other hard to listen to stories with small children around. We simply can’t use your app without the ability to curate the stories.

The old app worked. This app does not.

It’s bad enough that we can’t browse stations any more, but it won’t even let me listen to my local station at all, whether I enter the city, zip code, or call letters.

I use the NPR app daily for 2+ hours. I miss the search function and I don’t like the fact that I have to push so many buttons to get my local station to play. In short, I like the old app much better.

Went to comment and ask for help about why the feed is out of wack. The top news story is from one to three days ago, new news is way down the line. Following the app’s built in help/contact feature I get to a button labeled “Contact NPR”, of which pressing yields the message this link was moved, deleted or mistyped...

This app takes way too much time to simply get it to work. I have to set my “primary station” just about every other day. Sometimes it gives me primary stations in a neighboring state, not mine. Then when I hit it to turn on it takes about 5 seconds to actually play. And if that is not enough, more than half the time it will play the “music” version instead! Which I don’t save, but is paired as a save with the news station. So I hv to stop the music, and hit the news station again. Even then, it crashes weekly. Seriously, the worst app I’ve ever used. I expect more from NPR.

The new update is awful! Where is my favorite stations list!? Where is the playlist function?? Where is the list of stations by state??? Why can’t I explore other stations’ content easily?!! You made it so much worse!! Why?????!!!! Update: This app makes me angry now, so angry that my old app is gone and this new abomination is still there. I don’t even use it anymore and that makes me so sad, the NPR app was my go-to app I used it all the time and now I am going to delete this one and hope and pray you restore all the old functionality of what used to be a great app. This one is abysmal and a slap in the face to all of us who used to love it.

That’s the number one reason I use this app. If I have to choose each story individually after the previous one finishes, I might as well not bother.

Not sure why such a drastic change. Can’t save primary station. Having to set it every time. Miss being able to create playlists. Also would like to be able to listen to archived shows that might happen to be more than a week or so old.

I love the alerts when significant events take place; however, the headlines and articles on the opening page seem focused on non-urgent issues.

Updated NPR app. Big mistake. No playlist, no ability to name multiple favorite stations. You think I would have learned from the NPR One debacle. Delete this app and listen to podcasts intead.

I use this each weekend to play Weekend Edition and Weekend Edition Sunday. Please give me a way to add these to the top page of the On Demand options or some other convenient “favorites” tab. Also please allow a “play from here” option where I can pick a story and have it play that and all following stories.

The top story’s image is always full screen width, so if you use this on ipad in landscape mode you get a fullscreen picture of Donald freaking Trump’s dumb face, almost every time you open the app. Disgusting! Use margins. Use columns. Fullscreen images while scrolling through stories is a waste of space.

I’m fine with the basic layout of this app, but some key features are missing that make this version significantly less functional for me. First, there’s no personal playlist option, and as a result, you have to listen to an entire program (ex: Morning Edition) at once. The only other option is to manually go in to the program and play each story one at a time. The playlist feature in the old app allowed me to add stories, podcasts, other programs, etc. into a single list, and would play them all in an order of my choosing. There is no way to curate a list of of stories/programs you’d like to listen to in this app. Second, the daily programs (Morning Edition, All Things Considered) only list the stories from the most recent broadcast. The previous app had stories from broadcasts going back 3 days. Half the time I am using the app to catch up on missed stories. I have found myself digging old devices out of drawers so that I can find yesterday’s news stories using the old app. Finally, if you pause whatever program you’re listening to for too long, the app won’t save your spot. Overall, I get mad pretty much every time I try to use this app. I love NPR, but am disappointed in this app.

I love that I can listen to my local station on this app, but I have to search for my station every time I open it because the ‘save’ function simply doesn’t work — app asks if I’d like to save this station to my favs, confirms it as saved to my favs, but as soon as I close the app, this action is completely reversed. Every single time — so annoying. The older version didn’t have this issue. I wish they would fix this.

New app is terrible. Crashes unexpectedly, live streaming is constantly interrupted and or won’t start. I can’t save multiple favorite stations anymore. Why did you fix something that wasn’t broken NPR!? I miss my old app!! 😩

I regret updating the NPR App. I miss the playlist.

Playlist was the best feature in Npr app which they removed, earlier versions of the app was unstable but still was one of my favorite apps, now it’s unusable without the playlist feature. I am still giving it 2 stars as I love Npr.

Randomly freezes and shuts down. When I select one radio station from my recently played list (KCRW all news), it instead plays another (KCRW news and art). Same for KHPR 1 vs 2. If you start listening on WiFi and then move away to cellular data, the audio stops and the app freezes. And vice versa. And there’s no favorites list, just a recently played. 👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽

Seriously, what is the deal with this app? All the initial problems remain. Stories on the on-demand stream (the only thing that makes this mobile) suddenly cut off and skip ahead, sometimes by multiple stories to the middle of another story. There has not been one day—without hyperbole—that this app hasn’t malfunctioned in some way, causing me to restart the stream and skip ahead, or wait for it to stop being frozen, or just give up in frustration. The old app was fine. This is truly awful, buggy, irritating, and the comments make that pretty clear. PLAYLIST. P.S. I will never listen to NPR one (because it stinks, too—mystifying) and I am sick of hearing that plug for it in my stream.

I’m gradually getting used to the new design. But what’s up with the annoying popup at the bottom of the screen that is constantly telling me I am offline, when I am definitely not offline?

let me listen to what i want in the order i want. please.

Overall, not a bad experience since the overhaul. However, no longer having the ability to add stories to a playlist is deeply annoying, as it was the feature I used most often. BRING THE PLAYLIST BACK.

I used the NPR News app every day for years. I queued all the content I cared about when I had time to do so, and then I could return to the app at any point to listen to all those selections I made. It was nearly perfect—the playlist feature in the previous NPR News app was a bit buggy. In the new NPR app, there is no way for me to queue any content, and there is no way to automate playing of content I want to hear. I now simply have to be content with whichever ‘stream’ I’m listening to or be willing to put in a lot of conscious effort to constantly choose the content I want to listen to. I don’t—I switched to an app called News Now, which also does not have the features I want. It does let me stream the day’s national news content without much effort, and that makes it better for me than the new NPR app. Implement a playlist feature in this app. I want to be able to choose any NPR content, especially nationally relevant news segments, to keep in a queue that I can store, return to and choose content from at any time. Until the NPR app has a playlist feature that allows me to do these things, it is useless to me.

Ahhh! Just updated to iOS 11 (from 10) and that seemed to have automatically triggered a new (& definitely not improved NPR app). What happened to my playlist?! Of course I lost several stories that were saved there that I was planning to listen to later, but how do I even go about finding them again on this new app? There’s not even a general search box anymore. And even if I did find them, it looks like there is no more playlist feature anyway. I guess we are forced to search for and listen to one story at a time? Or just listen to all stories in a program (like ATC)? I really liked being able to select only the stories I was interested in. I could go on about the missing Favorites Stations, but it looks like many other reviewers are already pointing out that shortcoming. Hope NPR takes its listeners’ comments seriously and improves what so far is a step backwards for their app.

Just great. Thank you

All I want to do most of the time i use this app is play my local NPR station, KUT. More than half the time it plays KUTX instead. Awesome music station but not what i want when I’m looking for the news. In addition to other stability issues it needs to be better.

The new app is impossible to use. I select a segment and a different one comes up. It seems to take the first one in the list. Almost impossible to select the one I want.

Please stop the patronizing NPR One ads. Start treating your listeners with respect. Bring back the functionality of the old app.

The former app, NPR News, I rated five stars and frequently recommended it. The latest version is not beneficial to listeners. It is much more ad-driven, though. Both search function and playlist have been eliminated; I find I listen to about 25% of what I used to as it no longer allows the listener to save pieces to a playlist. It’s just not a convenient news source anymore - you either listen to everything on their terms or have to stop and select your next item after each one finishes.

If I step away from npr for a time, even leaving the npr app open, I cannot pick up where I left off and have to manually select “play all stories” and fast forward to the piece I want to hear. Additionally, I cannot share great stories through text or social media!

I’ve heard that only a small percentage of NPR app users used the playlist function, but I find that excuse for the removal of an excellent function to be weak. Every other major content provider (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc.) offers users the opportunity to consume content at the user’s convenience. Why NPR should somehow be different than other media platforms is totally beyond me. Your online ratings have dropped since you released the new version. Take the hint. Bring back the playlist!!!

New update looks great, but I dislike two major things: 1) I can no longer save a list of favorite stations. Please just add favorite stations back. Streaming is the only reason I use the app at all. 2) Battery drain. For several days in a row my phone has drained by 80% in just 6 hours. According to my phone’s battery health stats NPR is responsible for 45% of that battery usage. The other 55% is spread over a dozen other apps. I wasn’t even using the NPR app! So what the hell is it doing?

This newest update is garbage. I have already downloaded a new, better app. This version is horrible. Crashes. When it doesn’t crash, it just stops playing. Complete piece of crap.

This went from 6 stars to 1 in a single update. Let me have multiple favorite stations...we have 2 in here in the bay area!

This app and the one that preceded it both have major issues with the stream stopping and failing to resume if you walk between WiFi and cellular coverage areas. Listening while I’m on foot is my primary use case for this app, and it only works well if I turn off WiFi completely, which is a big headache. But lately this app has been forgetting my primary station constantly. Pretty much every time I open the app I have to search for and save my primary station again. It says it’s saved, and then it forgets.

I’m a sustaining member and listen to NPR daily. For the past two weeks at least, the app has not worked well and it’s extremely frustrating. It either doesn’t play live news or it stops in the middle. Please fix!!

This app is utterly shattered. The disappearance of the search function was quickly followed by the disappearance of the headlines - yeah. I opened the app and found a completely blank page. What a shame.

That was the best part. Deleting app now!

The old app had features I LOVED (recently played/listened to, smaller size for each separate radio cast, and it was easier to tell which articles only have a text option vs which ones are audio AND text). I love NPR, consider bringing back features from the old app. Thanks!

Much of the basic functionality of the previous app has been removed. I especially miss the ability to build a playlist. Now, you’re stuck listening to specific programs in the order they are presented. Finding programming is more annoying too. They have these little icons for each show in the On Demand section, and it’s hard to tell which is Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday because the icons are too small. (I figured that they are alphabetically ordered.) More importantly, the app doesn’t interface with iOS controls nearly as well. I often finding myself having to log into the app to get it replaying after pausing it, instead of just pressing play from the Lock Screen. The app is extremely slow refreshing, sometimes not refreshing at all, so that I have to close it by hand and reopen in order to get the latest Newscast. Please God stop with the advertisements for NPR One. I don’t want NPR One, I just want to make playlists myself.

Where has it gone? I can’t use my favorite app anymore! This is ridiculous, what happened? Developers are “working on a fix”?? The app was searchable before, what’s there to work on?

I’ve had it with this app. It constantly fails to update with the latest news. Regularly claims to have no internet connection. Plus no playlist feature.

If your goal was to ruin the app and make it just like all the other useless news app, THEN YOU SUCCEEDED MAGNIFICENTLY!! No matter what story you choose, pop up at bottom that takes up huge screen space says”is your phone offline?” Uhhh…no! If it was I couldn’t open the story to begin with idiots. Just another app that was fine until some momo started ***king with it.

The older version (still on my iPad) worked just fine - this new version CONSTANTLY requires me to re-enter my primary station, and doesn’t even save recent station enties (eg when i travel). Deleted.

The NPR news app was my beloved traveling companion, but this latest incarnation is TERRIBLE. It doesn’t hold a connection, regardless of how good the cellular connection is. Today it wouldn’t play my local station AT ALL even after I rebooted my phone! Just wouldn’t play! To listen while I was walking my dog I had to stream via its webpage on Safari. Inexcusable. And it totally stinks that my list of favorites got eliminated - I used to have 6-8 ‘go-to’ stations for my regular locales and to time-shift shows that I missed (like WESat & WESun). It is so much more inconvenient to have to continually reset my preferred station. I am a sustaining member of TWO stations. I am a true NPR junkie and you’re really messing with my feed. Please fix it!!!!

Listen every day.

Without playlist it's difficult.

Bad design, terrible UX, should have hired an design agency that knew what they were doing. If it doesn’t improve fast I will delete it. You know what’s wrong. Stop trying to tell me what to listen to and let me self curate.

In an era when news content is increasingly delivered on mobile platforms, NPR has made a decisive step in the wrong direction. News consumers expect greater access to a variety of easily managed stories and segments at their convenience. The new version of this app restricts access, limits content, removes playlist management and gives primacy to formats that mimic live radio. It is a blunder that most certainly has already driven listenership away from the app if not the organization. Such a determined obsolescence is either pitiful incompetence or a manipulative effort to herd listenership away from modern outlets. If not rectified immediately the damage done will be permanent.

That was my favorite feature about the previous versions and now it is gone. Boo!!!

I used to love ordering my playlists how I like, leaving stories I don’t want. It’s very inconsiderate as a developer to remove features that improve your listeners experience. Is there any checks & balances? I’m deleting this app until the playlist feature is returned

Been delaying upgrading to new because of feedback. I bike commute everyday and used this app every day x2. Now the live stream is just too unreliable. Bummer.

Ability to queue up playlists is completely gone now. Sadly, I have switched over to a podcast app instead.

This update swapped functionality for slick graphics. No more playlists and only one day of programming accessible. You should fire your design staff.

That’s it. One glance at this latest update and I knew I’d made a great error by updating. Should have read the reviews, it’s NPR One all over again. No playlist?!? How is this app any better than just visiting NPR mobile thru a browser and going from story to story? Why even have an app at all? Bye!

This app constantly crashes and loses connection with stations even with an extremely strong signal.

I uninstalled the app after the update. I haven’t listened to or used the app in weeks because of how terrible the new app is. I miss the old app. 1. They totally got rid of the playlist feature. I used this feature daily and loved it. I loved being able to save stories and come back to them later. Now, if you listen to half a story, you can’t find it again. You have to search for it and then start the story over. 2. I can’t share specific stories when listening to them anymore. I have to google and find them and then share with family and friends. I used to share stories weekly with family and friends. I haven’t shared stories in months because of this. 3. I can only have one local favorite station now. I live in a smallish town, so I had several favorites, one was my local station and the others from the capital and another large city. Please bring back the features of the old app above that we loved!

Playlist feature, the only logical way to listen to this content, has been removed supposedly because “very few people used it.” Maybe Tesla should take out the brake pedal using the same logic.

Thank you for restoring the Play Newscast functionality of 3D Touch. It is a great feature that provides much faster access to your content.

NPR News app is geared for those who want to hear the most recent news. The hourly news summaries, and the weekday morning and daily afternoon news shows are all prominently placed for quick access. Feature requests: 1) It would be great if when I opened the app on Saturday or Sunday, that morning’s “Weekend Edition” show was in the “Featured” section instead of the previous Friday’s “Morning Edition”. 2) On Demand tab should refresh frequently

It’s RADIO stupid. But I finally found a way around all the shortcomings. Try the app SIMPLE RADIO. Does what the original and far better NPR app did. Organized Radio rather than competing with USA Today. Design from audio out, not story in. This new app is the kitchen sink of multi media. A position no one should aspire to. Does everything and nothing well. Well now that some lame 3rd party app dev company ruined this once simple powerful tool - I see an opportunity for another app - JUST FIND MY NPR STATION. As I trace for work around the US -Find them. Favorite them. Play them. Done. Mic drop I think National Public Radio forgot their core competency is RADIO. This has become some ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach to app design and implementation. Can you at least bring back FAVORITES? What was great as I travelled around America I had one simple relationship to NPR. Now it reminds me why i hate USA TODAY. Slick but vacuous.

I absolutely love and rely on NPR News app! I also listen to/support my local stations (I fortunately have 2 to choose from) regularly! However, so much of what I turned to is now gone. For example, I frequently made a playlist of Morning Edition or All Things Considered because I knew I would miss most of it because my commute is not long enough, etc. I also looked forward to listening to other stations and their amazing shows. I regularly would look to and play what I missed live on Fresh Air or 1A. My husband and I would regularly turn to the NPR app when on long road trips for both news, education and entertainment. News is more than what’s “trending”. How am I supposed to do any of these things now? The old app was a solid 5 stars.

What were you thinking, you’ve killed off all of my favorite stations, and now I can only favorite one station, how stupid is that. If I want to listen to something and I’ve missed it on the East Coast, then I like to go to my West Coast stations and listen to it later. I’m not allowed to favor East Coast and West Coast and a central favorite station. Just plain old stupid. Why can I have a list of 40 stations I like?

I agree with all the other negative reviews. I wish I'd read them before my phone innocently updated so I could've kept the old app. My biggest issue is losing the search function. I often use the app to re-listen to a story I partially missed on the radio. The old search function was great for this. The horrible new app doesn't have a search function and the selection of stories by topic is so limited and cumbersome, I couldn't find several stories I'd heard earlier in the day, let alone any past days' stories. I really miss the old app. It had a lot of flexibility and functionality, like the much lamented playlists and ability to easily access programming from distant stations. I don't need to listen to my primary station through this app. They have their own app. I relied on the old app to curate my own listening when I wasn't engaged by my local station's programming. Full disclosure: I've always hated the NPR One app, and always resented that it wanted you to login with Facebook, etc. The wonderful old app was my refuge from NPR One. Now I feel like NPR has broken faith with me.

Still no playlist

...waiting for a playlist...using my iPad mini bc the iPad app has a playlist. I’m NEVER updating my NPR apps. Lesson learned.

I love this company and this news and the app, beautiful design, but it’s not totally user friendly. It irritatingly goes from the end of any show to the live broad cast instead of onto the next episode. And I would love the ability to sort shows by date in either order - the shows that are told from beginning to end can be hard to figure out because you don’t always pay attention to what number you listened to or what the episode title was called.

Can no longer queue multiple stories

I listen to this while doing yard work and it burns through my battery very quickly. It also pauses the show when the low battery notifications start coming up. It also burns through a lot of data if on cellular data. Pandora doesn’t use as much as this and I’m not sure why.

There were some missing features when the new app rolled out - and it took a couple months to address them - but the NPR app team tackled these issues (thanks for the 3D Touch functionality!) and also took the time to reach out to users like me that left less-than-thrilled feedback on the original app release. The app is great again (har har), and the developers clearly care about what users have to say.

This app has been terrible since they overhauled it

Like many others still waiting for a queue to easily save things to listen to on future dates, but worst of all there is a bug that often skips a minute or more of segments while trying to “play all” of morning edition.

Why did you get rid of the playlist? I loved that feature for queueing up programs or individual stories that I’d listen to while running or reading exercising or even while falling asleep. This was so convenient also for curating a playlist that would be appropriate for playing during dinner with young children who don’t need to hear about rape or genocide. I will continue to use the new app but hope to see an update soon that restores the playlist feature.

The older app version was more customisable, had easy access to programs I liked, and was easy to navigate. This one has an annoying format and crashes. It hasn’t worked for me in months and I miss NPR but not dealing with this app.

Podcasts stop for no reason. We have to just start over. The old version would remember where in a podcast we left off, so we could resume. This one does not.

This version removes the playlist. You can only listen to current pieces and shows. I’m so disappointed. This was the app that consumed most of my smart phone time. Not only did I lose the stories I had saved, but I lost the ability to say pieces for future listening. PLEASE bring back play lists I want to give this app a one star but the Apple Store will not let me post this review that way.

Really frustrating to use - very inconsistent in its ability to keep playing without having to pick up my iPhone and start it up again and again.

NPR now stands for No Playlist Return! Bye bye NPR.

I’ve never reviewed an app before. This app crashes anytime the phones wifi status changes. Any time the app is interrupted by anything, it crashes. It’s the most unstable app I’ve used. The old app worked fine. What were they thinking?

A great news source but without the playlist it is no longer a “mobile” app as you have to stop what you are doing after each story to start the next. So, can’t be used when driving, at the gym, etc... bring back the playlist, cmon

App has always worked fine for at least 3-4y, but the last week nothing is coming through, no articles at all

Title says it all.

Other reviewers have gone into detail on all the useful features that have been removed from this app, so I won’t repeat the entire list. I miss a lot of the old features, but in particular the loss of the playlist has made the new version all but unusable. If I stop listening for awhile the app refreshes and I have to fast forward through every story I’ve already listened to to get back to the one I was on. From the embedded NPR One promos it seems like the purpose of this now sadly limited app is to drive users to NPR One. If I wanted to use NPR One I already would! I can’t stand NPR One, partly because its filter bubbling algorithm has gotten my interests totally wrong and there’s no way to reset it, but mostly because I can’t listen to the important news I want to hear all the way through before it veers off into unimportant, and even outdated, stories. The older NPR News app gave me what I want, which is now gone with this new app. So much for “improvements”.

Where are playlists? What makes you think our hands are free to listen to one article at a time? Predicting a pay for playlists in the near future..... you have list me until playlists and the variety are back.

I loved the app the way it was. It wasn’t broken. I hate the new version.

The playlist feature is gone which is a huge part of everyone using the app. Being able to select 10-15 different stories and hit play ONCE was an amazing feature. Also more local stations and programs like On Point are now gone. Needs to be brought back...esp the playlist feature.

It takes me forever to get to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, the only program I listen to. The previous app may not have been much of a looker, but it was way better to use. I am an iOS developer so I know the appeal of making fancy new UIs to keep yourself busy, but know that all the hard work you put in to churn out those shiny new view controllers was all for crap. Hire a better usability designer next time please.

Bring back the only reason I used your app: the playlist.

Please bring back the playlist functionality.

I’ve been waiting for the npr app to catch up with the npr one app. Finally!!! So happy. Easy to find and listen to programs on demand. 👌

I don’t understand why NPR assumes that its listeners’ personal choices & convenience don’t matter. With the playlist (now removed, of course), I could queue up the stories that interested me from NPR shows and listen to them whenever I liked. Now I am reduced to listening to full shows (available for a single day only in some cases) or to manually playing each segment—rather hard if I’m listening in the shower & irritating all of the time. If I’ve opted to play the whole show but skip a segment (say, about a pop star whose music grates in my nerves), then I’m “punished” by having to play the remaining news segments one at a time. NPR, I don’t have time to listen to multiple, one-hour podcasts, & I neither want nor need an app that “curates” my listening for me. Instead, I want an app that allows me control & flexibility and helps me to stay well-informed. NPR News used to be that app before you folks ruined it.

Very disappointed that upgraded app removes ability to create personal playlists from Morning Ediition and All Things Considered. Do not install new version

The new NPR app is prettier than the old app, but it is less usable: # No search. I hope this is added back soon, but the new app simply does not have any search functionality. I can't see why search is omitted. In particular, this makes it impossible to listen to segments that are no longer currently listed in the latest installment of a program. For instance, I often like to losten to "It's all politics" segments from Friday's All Things Considered. And this is now impossible, unless I listen on the day it airs. # More menus/more navigation. For me, and (I suspect) many other listeners, the most inportant page is the list of all programs. This is where I always start. It is now tucked away in a submenu under "On Demand". It's just a bit of additional scrolling + an additional tap, but I find myself doing this over and over again. # Lower information density -> more scrolling. Once within a list of stories/segmants, only 3 list items fit on the screen at once (on my iPhone X). This makes it harder to look over a list and choose which items you want to listen to. This change allowed for small excerpts to be displayed underneath segment titles, but these excerpts are often truncated first sentences which, in practice, don't actually help summarize what a segment is about. - Taken together, I can no longer use this app to listen to NPR in the way I want to listen to it: picking individual segments to add to my playlist.

The review above says all of my critique as well. But doing away with a personal playlist and limiting readers ability to listen to interesting stories when there is spare time. Shame. Loved the old app. Wish your redesign incorporated the best features...

The old app wasn’t great for anything over two days old. This new one is worse. Locks up your lock screen from any other audio player. Basically, more broken than the old app.

Please consider bringing back the old app for those of us who detest this new version. For me, the app was all about the playlist which allowed me to listen to what interested me and to skip the things that were not of interest. I have been a PBS/NPR contributor forever and volunteer for pledge drives, as well. I am deeply disappointed that you’ve done away with the best aspect of the old app.

I can’t be more disappointed with the upgrade that has taken away the playlist and along with it the opportunity to listen to news stories when you have more time like the weekends. I increased my membership to the sustaining level because I liked the old app so much. If NPR won’t fix this problem, please make the old version available and give us the freedom to choose!

Having an editable playlist was the best feature of the old app and now it’s gone. I never listen to an entire news show. I am most often listening to the news programs late at night. I go through and remove the music/movie-centered or war/riot-related stories because they are so startling loud mixed in between talk radio. I also often reorder the broadcast. These features are so helpful and make it possible for me to listen to the news at the end of the day. I will likely stop using the app since this is no longer possible. I downloaded NPR One to see if it had a playlist, but it doesn’t either. So disappointing. I used to love & rely on my NPR news app!

(The one for the front dropdown screen on the iPhone.... so it plays the 5 minute news summary with one touch)

Most of the good functionality like saving stories to listen later is gone. Definite downgrade from earlier versions. I contacted NPR over a week ago before writing this review....crickets. DisappointED as a long time financial supporter of NPR.

I’ve tried the npr one app. I’m sorry but for various reasons I just don’t like it. I have the feeling I’m not alone. Now, instead of leaving the original npr app as a viable alternative they’ve decided to begin to remove its good features and actually make it less good in an attempt to cajole its users into using npr one. Hey npr, i don’t want an app that works just like the radio, i want an app that works like a really good app (for the user) which for me involves choice and control and a lot of good content. Now npr has two apps that can’t provide that instead of just one. Bummer.

The interface on the new app is confusing, fewer new stories are listed, and it is missing programs like Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday. I miss the old app.

New app update (04/18) not all bad, but why the extremely limited podcast list. Says more podcasts are available at NPR One app, but NPR One app has already proven to be a failure. What was NPR thinking?

I live in an area where there are multiple NPR stations. The old app allowed me to save multiple favorite stations, now I can only save one. Perhaps there is way to save more but I haven’t found it yet. Definite down grade :(

I hate the new version. I can’t save for later listening the audio stories with this new version. Why oh why does improving software and podcasts mean dumping everything you are used to or moving it into a hidden space?

Ive been using the NPR app to listen to NPR for years. Since my app automatically updated to this new version, I’m mostly unable to listen because it crashes so much. No indication from the app what’s going on and I find the play buttons on the Live Radio page to be unresponsive—I often can’t even tell if they register a tap.

NPR always needs funds. I have a suggestion: Post the previous version of the app as a $10 download, you will raise millions.

This version is not an improvement. They didn’t include the playlist which was one id the best features. Please bring this back. More ads jumping in you face. Very sad.

I used to queue up the stories and shows I wanted to hear on my way to work. I no longer see the playlist function meaning the app is no longer able to meet my needs. I can’t change or try to flip between stories while driving.

The new app might as well be called NPR ONE Part 2, which is not a good thing for regular users of NPR News. The Playlist was what made the NPR News app so great — being able to choose stories from different shows and then letting them play without having to constantly navigate around the app. This was especially useful for those if us who listened during our daily commutes. The previous version was easily a 5-star app. The new version? Not so much.

Other reviewers have gone into detail on all the useful features that have been removed from this app, so I won’t repeat the entire list. I miss a lot of the old features, but in particular the loss of the playlist has made the new version all but unusable. If I stop listening for awhile the app refreshes and I have to fast forward through every story I’ve already listened to to get back to the one I was on. From the embedded NPR One promos it seems like the purpose of this now sadly limited app is to drive users to NPR One. If I wanted to use NPR One I already would! I can’t stand NPR One, partly because its filter bubbling algorithm has gotten my interests totally wrong and there’s no way to reset it, but mostly because I can’t listen to the important news I want to hear all the way through before it veers off into unimportant, and even outdated, stories. The older NPR News app gave me what I want, which is now gone with this new app. So much for “improvements”.

The old app was so much better. Why did they kill off essential and basic features such as user created playlists? What were they thinking?

Please change it back! It wasn’t broke before.

Just updated the app & I’m so sorry I did—you took away everything I used daily & substituted nothing except a live feed allowing only *one* station. App now seems much more like NPR One (which I tried briefly & disliked). Please bring back the ability to have more than one live-stream station and (especially) please bring back playlists! Like others here, I generally selected “Add all to playlist” & then deleted stories I wasn’t interested in (e.g. sports). Also, please return “On demand” to “list” format (or offer as option) so we can see more than two (besides the hourly newscast) at a time. Your graphics may be pretty but I care much more about functionality.

It deletes your playlist when you update. There is no playlist. You either have to search one at a time, or listen through a whole episode and jump forward- so not good for listening while exercising. Also horrible if, like me, your ability to listen is time and day sensitive.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to access stories from shows on programs like Morning Edition and the Weekend Editions. The older app easily let me get to them quite easily. This updated app comes up short and severely limits our choices. Disappointed.

Another dumbed-down minimalist disaster of an app, I’m sure both “curated” and thoroughly “handcrafted.” Once a fine freeway to the news, this latest version is the apparent bitter end of the road, rocky and trash strewn. Operation is sketchy, no more search function or playlist, little user control. Quite apparently, the makers of this miserable app neither respect nor listen to their users. And least of all, do they have any respect for their colleagues who work so hard to produce NPR news. Not going back to being force fed the news. That’s it. After nearly 50 years, it’s goodbye NPR. Thank God I still have the BBC with the advantage of much less Trump even if I have to put up with bits of Brexit and the bloody Archers.

Bring back playlists and give us the option to see more than 1 day of content

I’m very very disappointed that the playlist feature is gone. That was the only way I could get stay as close to “up to date” that I can get. As full-time working mom of a nursing infant and 3 year old the playlist was the only way I could choose the stories and be able to listen to them when I have time to myself (on my commute or washing dishes with earbuds). Now I’m missing out on so much. I should not have selected “update all”. I should not have downloaded the newest version.

I will listen to far less npr now that they have taken away most of the functionality and control I had with the old app. This is as terrible and as the useless NPROne app. I was already annoyed when NPR removed programs from the NZpR app and forced me to download NPROne. I can’t even make a playlist on this updated app! I have to babysit the app! I am not able to listen to ATC and Morn.Ed. when they air live and sometimes I will slowly add days worth of broadcasts to my playlist so they are ready to keep my mind occupied days later when I have the time and/or the type of work that will allow me to catch up on things. I give monthly and think NPR is more important today than ever. I don’t understand why you would take these functions away? It seems corporate rather than non-profit. If I find myself able to listen less I may give less. I find NPR to be a hugely valuable and important part of my life and feel like it has been swept out from under me w/o reason. This is the first online review I have ever written. I am really upset. Please NPR, take this back! This is having a surprisingly and upsetting effect on my life and work. I never realized how much time I spend w/ the NPR app keeping my mind occupied while my body does other things.

Big fan of NPR and the app. The content is solid. This review is for a subpar app design. Sending links via text to episodes or stories don’t work at all. Takes the person to a 404 “not found” page. That’s gotta get fixed pronto. Also, to send those stories/episodes means that I have to open the episode (and interrupt what I’m listening to at that moment) so that I can click “full story” and then share from that page. The app doesn’t remember where you were in a story or episode. So you can’t come back to right where you left off. An auto-bookmark feature would be solid. I can’t stress enough how much I adore and respect NPR and the content. It is superb and an oasis of knowledge and thoughtfulness in a wasteland of ignorance. This review is strictly with regard to app functionality. Thanks!

Unfortunately you’ve messed up my routine. I normally used to listen to the NPR News and then load either Morning Edition or All Things Considered then build my playlist for listening in the car on my own time. And if I didn’t finish my playlist, it was there for me to start up again when I was ready. This was a powerful feature that is no longer available. Please bring it back.

This update DESTROYED a great app!! I have been customizing playlists for years and now that feature has inexplicably been removed. WHY remove functionality that is so useful? New app is difficult to navigate. Nothing to like about it. I miss listening to Weekend Edition, which has vanished from the queue. PLEASE bring back the old version!!

Dear NPR, The feedback you received from the aborted NPR One app release last year caused you to keep the single story functionality of the NPR News app. The feedback was overwhelming. Now, you choose to redesign the News app again without understanding what your listeners were looking for in the app. One more time: We don’t have time to listen straight through to all of your stories. We want the ability to choose which stories we need and listen to them in a playlist. Please restore. Until then, I’ll be listening to NPR in the car to and from work but will not be using your app. This was easy. You keep mucking it up.

If a survey had been done, or a beta test, they'd have realized how important a tool the playlist is for accessing the broadest swath of programming across the entire spectrum of shows and topics, especially because the ATC/Morning Edition suite of news programming isn't made available via Podcast.- Signed $$ Member for many Decades

First, I love NPR. Now I have to say that the new NPR app version eliminated the best features of the app that I used daily. I can’t understand how this was considered an enhancement and improvement over the old app. All the stations I had saved are now gone and I can’t get them back. I listen to NPR stations from Seattle, NY, Chicago, Phoenix etc. and I had them all loaded and ready. Now the app only allows me to have one favorite. Also, I used to have the option of easily listening to programs and program segments from past days. If I missed the Week in Review segment on the Friday All Things Considered show, I could quickly find it and listen to it. Now I cannot see how to do that and there is no search icon to help. Is this function gone also? This is a bummer, folks, please bring back these great features from the original app. Thank you!

I can't believe they eliminated the playlist. I can't believe my playlist is gone, and I can't imagine finding any use for the app without the ability to create a playlist. Am I really going to sit by my phone, picking a new story I missed every three minutes? Stupidity.

So angry that my playlist is gone. And there’s seems to be no option to start a new one. Why?

Due to loss of functionality and battery drain issues (see other recent reviews), I am deleting the app. I’ve been a listener for many years. Very sad decisions by NPR

Please, please, please bring back the playlist. PLEASE. And please, please, please let us select from more than just the most recent episodes. Your app was so much more functional before.

My old way of playing the entire ATC show: tap playlist tab. Tap edit. Tap clear playlist. Tap done editing. Tap programs tab. Tap ATC. Tap add all to playlist. Tap playlist tab. Tap play. My new way: tap on demand tab. Tap ATC. Tap play all.

Can’t scroll through to next story. Have to go back and forth. Not a smooth continuous reading experience. Very clunky. No way to have an overview of daily news. Really bad.

Why did you get rid of favorites?

With version 4.0, NOR refreshed the functionality and design. While more podcast support was added, the queue function has been removed. I consider this a major “fail” I’m functional design.

Really liked the old app where things were easy to find and if not, you could always search for the topic. Now Navarro faction has become difficult and there is no search function. Removing this app from my phone.

The new interface is quite a nice update, but losing station favorites is a HUGE step back. Please add this feature back to the app.

Thank you for this really great upgrade to the NPR News app! The look is clean and beautiful and it’s easy to use! I especially appreciate that it’s now possible to hear Morning Edition and ATC in their entirety. I tried to like NPR One but it doesn’t give the option to listen to full NPR programs. And a couple of years ago my local station changed their format so that much of Morning Edition is cut into with other shows like BBC News, Marketplace, and weirdly reported local news—all of which I’m interested in but not at the expense of NPR. What got cut out of NPR was the non-political stories like tech or arts, making the experience rather bleak. My solution was to stream some other public radio station but that’s got its own drawbacks. This is a long awaited upgrade. Thank you NPR!

What happened to the search box?? I use to like to type key words and find a range of stories with that word included. Please bring that back!!

The app was great. Now it lacks so many of the features that I found indispensable.

The new look is great - but key features that always made this app my preferred choice over NPR One are gone. As others have noted, the removal the playlist feature is disappointing. One of the most frustrating omissions is the removal of favorite radio stations. As someone who lives in an area with three public radio stations and travels, it was great to have the ability to quickly access a handful of favorites. Now I need to use the search or location feature each time I simply want switch stations. Finally, it would have been nice to have the ability to Favorite particular programs. Unfortunately, if I want to listen to a favorite show, I have to press On Demand, scroll to More NPR Shows & Podcasts, press More, scroll to the show I want, etc. why not simply allow us to select particular shows as Favorites that appear on the On Demand home screen - rather than the arbitrary few shows that are currently displayed. This new version looks great - but removed key features, and did not improve significantly on the functionality of the previous version.

The NPR news app used to be my favorite app and I recommended it highly. It was easy to scroll through the stories and read headlines, and my favorite part was being able to build a playlist of stories that I found interesting. I would build a playlist in the morning to listen to on my walk or bus ride to work or while running errands. Now that feature is gone, and it’s time consuming to navigate the app and have to select each story individually. Who wants to dig their phone out of their pocket or back every few minutes to select another story? The update rendered the app effectively useless for me, it’s now the same as any other news app or website. I sincerely hope they bring the playlist feature back, however if it stays this non-user friendly I will probably delete it with a heavy heart.

Awful, they deleted the ability to stack stories into an ad hoc playlist. All organization of shows is gone, it all seems random. Shows seem mingled with podcasts??

There’s no longer a search option. Why? What possible reason is there for removing search from a content rich app like npr? It’s basically a useless app now.

I am deeply disappointed in this new app. For years, I spent 1-2 hours a day listening to the NPR app based on the playlist I curated with individual stories. I could have 100 stories in my queue if I went on vacation and catch up the next week. It was hands down my primary source of news. The best part was the continuous play. When driving, it would automatically go from one story I’d curated to the next, hands free. This new app doesn’t allow for any of that. My daily routine appears to be gone, and I can no longer safely listen to the stories I’ve selected while driving. I guess I’ll switch to podcasts, but I’m so sad to have my daily companion yanked away from me. Goodbye, NPR. :(

I loved my playlist. I loved being able to easily share stories with others. All I really wanted is Morning Edition and then later All Things Considered. Now if I re-tap “play all stories” it starts at the beginning, not where I left off. NPR ONE plays full podcasts, not the shows I choose. I’m really sad. I loved the NPR app! It was all I listened to on my commute. Now I have to mess with my phone so much more. So sad.

The streaming radio in the new version only works intermittently, and I am no longer allowed to save multiple stations in a favorite list. I need multiple tries to stream chosen channel, whether or not I am using WiFi or cellular data. Sometimes it selects different programs on the hammer then the one selected. However, when it does work, sometimes sound cuts out! Please bring back the old app. It wasn’t perfect, but was much better.

Wiped out my saved stations and cannot even find my local NPR station when searching by Call letters, City or ZIP. I hate the fact I am only allowed one favorite station. Sorry WUWM, CPR, WHA and KUAZ, I can’t easily access you anymore or any of the local programming quickly. But hey, at you are an option! KRCU doesn’t exist anymore and I am sure that during the membership drive (currently going on) this has got to help.

No playlist- no way to scan the headlines and save for later. Also, unless you want to hear every story in a program, you have to listen to one story, then search for the next. For someone like me that can only listen 20 mins at a time and not every day, this is horrible.

The recent update has made it more difficult for me to find the shows I want to hear. Maybe on the next update they can create a playlist or favorites section where we can add only the programs we want.

I was pretty satisfied with the old version. This update showed up on my phone with no explanation as to all the features they removed or why. As it happens, I only use the app in two ways, both of which appear to have been removed: making playlists of show segments and streaming npr stations from various places I’ve lived. Removing these was annoying. Even more frustrating was doing so without even a one time splash screen explaining the changes, forcing users like me to waste our time searching for features no longer present

Whoever decided to remove the playlist from the latest update should be fired. Usually in product development, you never de-feature a product through a maintenance release. NPR does. I am bitterly disappointed as there are so many people who would much rather pick and choose news stories they are interested in and listen to them without having to manually select stories. Personally, I will create my playlist and then listen to it while working out, mowing the lawn, cleaning the pool, or when my wife is ranting about something. If you happen to have an older iDevice with the old NPR app, disable auto update and preserve it. NPR: please bring back the playlist and also let me select stations outside my region like before.

Original review with 5 stars: One of the apps I use daily. It never disappoints. Updated review with 2 stars: You took away the playlist!!! Though I still use the NPR app daily, it now disappoints. :(

I love being able to listen to NPR no matter where I am. I just wish that when listening to a specific program that the next segment would automatically play.

bring back the playlist option. This new version is crap. It’s more cumbersome and less convenient. Less people will listen because of this change.

Old program allowed access to multiple stations across the us. Loved listening to stations where I used to live. Don’t have that choice anymore. U get to choose just one primary station

Really hate the new design. Let the one app be full of fluff, but keep the news app functional.

Now that we have a glamorous update to the app, we now get to listen only to yesterday’s news, just in case we forgot it. Wonderful improvement. Why doesn’t anyone ever test changes or updates to apps these days?

The prevailing approach to digital at NPR for the past few years has been to reduce choice and control for listeners. I want a playlist. I want access to transcripts. I want access to the back catalogue. None of those things are present here. I don’t as only able to access the most recent show of even their most popular shows. That seems just nonsensical. There is already a (terrible) NPR ONE app. Why turn the news app into that as well?

It stinks! Enough said!!

Oh, I should have looked at the reviews before I updated. Why did you get rid of the favorite stations feature? I like to wake up late in PA and click on my saved favorite in CA to listen to the morning news. Also, every station has its own special shows and using the favorite station feature made it possible to listen to them. Now we get to choose one favorite station and have to eliminate that one station to waste time and data to look up another “favorite” station. Please put this feature back in. Also, pretty pictures are not needed. We can read. Please go back to the compact list of many things to listen to displayed in words instead of pictures. Takes up too much data stream and too much time to load.

This update is terrible. Used on my iPod it hangs much of the time and often times it won’t get to the news stations n here in the twin cities. The older version was far better. Incidentally, this s version n automatically downloaded axed and replaced the previous app. Really shoddy for the want of new members and/or keeping old members.

I loved the old app but hate the less functional version that replaced it. I particularly miss the playlist, with its ability for me to order news stories as I’d like. What would possess NPR to replace a great app with this train wreck? Please bring back the old app! Now!

I absolutely hate the new app. I feel coerced into choosing a single station, and reminded that I should give money every time I open it up. I would gladly pay extra to get the old system back. NPR has not explained why they changed the App. It makes us even more tribal than we already are. NPR listen to your supporters please!

Used the playlist feature in the old app daily. Now playlists are gone and it’s a tedious chore to listen to selected stories.

Where is my playlist? I did an update and my playlist I’ve had for years is gone! I don’t see where I can add stories to a playlist and then edit out the stories from morning edition that I don’t want to hear that are too upsetting. Please bring it back. If I’ve overlooked it, where is it hidden?

Inability to quickly scan through headlines on the home page. Can't swipe right and left anymore between stories. Layout too wide and clumsy. Please revert to the old format!

So many things are wrong with this update that you really have to wonder if NPR did any testing before it released it! The problems with the update make the app practically unusable. The app is super sluggish on my device and crashes off and on. The playlist function is gone, so if you want to listen to a program you have to use the on demand feature. This feature is especially annoying since you either have to play individual stories (thereby constantly interacting with your phone, which is hard to do while driving or cooking) or listen to the whole program (which is equally annoying since it will lose your place in the program if you have to pause it). I'm sure there is more wrong with the app that I just haven't discovered yet!

Nice job on the new app. I have one big gripe though and that is that I can not find a way to share any audio content from your programs. There’s seemingly no way to do this. Not by long press, force touch, nor swiping. Can you fix this?

Please, please bring back the previous iOS app—it’s SO far superior to the updated version!! The previous version was great; easy to use and useful. A news app doesn’t need a fancy interface, it needs to quickly let users find content. But you’ve traded function for form in the new update, and it’s awful. I’ve used the app (and listened for hours per day, literally) since it launched in 2009, and I couldn’t be more disappointed. I have both an iPhone and a Samsung for work, and now I have to use my work phone to listen because it still has the old version. The previous app made it easy to scroll through stories, but this one has flashy headlines and more pictures substituted for the content users want. All the stories I’d loaded in my playlist to listen on the way to work vanished overnight, and I can’t even create a playlist!! The FOUR favorite stations id saved and listened to frequently are gone and it’s cumbersome to find a live stream. It’s also irritating and cumbersome to find favorite programs. You guys have broken something that didn’t need fixing. Please, please ditch this version and give your loyal users back the previous, actually useful one.

A jumbled mess. Lots of scrolling to get around, news stories now have teasers. Still haven’t found everything. News cast is hidden under on-demand. Took a while to find it. Bummer.

I am accustomed to building a playlist off of individual programs… At different times of the day and I listen to them in all kinds of ways. Sometimes I even listen to them multiple times if I get distracted while I’m playing. This appears to have removed my single favorite feature from the old app: the ability to select a program and build a playlist off of it. I don’t have time to delve into each topical area, and I am already listening less. This appears to have been built by a marketing department that wants to tell us how to listen.

On what planet is the new NPR app considered an improvement? This new app breaks my heart and only leads me to curse the change. And then look for great audio content elsewhere. NPR went from being my favorite app that I loved and used multiple times a day to being one that feels like a useless annoying waste of space on my phone. You took away pretty much everything I loved about the NPR app - the playlist function, the easy search function, being able to search by show and find and select individual stories. Now I have to wade through a bunch of annoyingly messy “headlines” and try to figure out which stories actually have audio and hope they are things I actually want to listen to?? I can’t just go to my favorite shows and scroll through. It’s also awkward to try to share things. Everything about this new app absolutely stinks. Who were the idiots who actually thought this was a good idea?

Agree that you’ve been busy creating something over the top...but it cannot replace the simplicity I’ve enjoyed for so many years.

Do journalism not one sided news.

I did the update and use this all the time, however it seems to stop the audio while listening to the live station quite often. I also am having a hard time getting to my stations. Please go back to the old version.

No ability to save your favorite stations.

Why, why, why did you get rid of playlists, NPR? The utility of this app for me just went from day to deleted. I love you guys but I can’t understand the logic here.

I used to be able to store my favorite stations so I could access them when I opened the app. Now, even when I set my primary station, it disappears when I close the app and I have to look for my station all over again. The new app is not intuitive at all. It looks nice but is not practical. Please just bring back the old app!

There are so many features missing with this new app. The widget I used every morning is gone. The list of pods casts is gone. Whoever’s idea this was- it was half baked

Listener since 1972. Please reverse the decision here to not allow playlist creation from such a wide range of good programming. Now it appears to force us to either listen to all or to select a story one at a time. What problem were you trying to solve? Now we will all be forced to listen to much less of your programming. If it wasn’t broken don’t fix it.

As an avid NPR listener and donor I feel betrayed. Playlist gone without notice - it was wonderful to queue up listening in the morning (even though I am not in the US) on my commute . Font and User Interface - bulky, large and not user friendly. The old one was small and agile and quick to use. Might have to find a new news aggregation App (even if I have to pay) and abandon this.

As a lot of other reviewers stated, this new update has lost me. In the old app, sometimes having to individually add each segment could be time consuming (grouping the segments by day would have helped,) but now I see why I would have preferred that over the new design. Gone are easy menus with local shows and casts from all over the country where you could set up a playlist for the morning or your day. Replaced with big photos, white spaces and no playlist. I should have never updated. Annoying. I’ll still support my local station and podcasts I like so that’s why it got a 2, but this is about the APP usefulness and not the content of the programs.

I wish I was given the choice not to update the app. You eliminated 2 important features that were in the previous version: the playlist and the ability to have a saved list of stations to listen to. The app may look better, but it has lost it’s functionality. I’m very disappointed. If it still had these features, I would have rated it 5 stars.

Looks like NPR finally forced their NPR One app on everyone. They didn’t even have the common sense to read the negative reviews about that app before making everyone migrate to this update. While the NPR app from 10yrs ago was ugly it was more intuitive with better features. This app lacks all the features and I’m more likely to use TuneIn instead of this one. I wonder how much money they spent on this app’s development. They got ripped off.

Wow... This update is a huge step backwards. First off, much bigger ads that take up half the stream. Secondly this is NPR - National Public RADIO not National Public Reading. The focus on written articles seems counter to the whole Radio part... You used to be able to add stories to a playlist and then listen through the stories you wanted. That's all I want out of this app but that no longer works. The UI is atrocious and makes no sense compared to the previous version. It's basically unusable if you want to pick and choose stirs to listen to... But if you want to read them then I guess it's ok except that's kinda but the point of a radio app. Honestly I don't know what the app designers were thinking with this update and I doubt I'll use the app much anymore because it requires far too much work to try and pick and choose stories to listen to...

It may be a touch too dramatic to say that my entire world has been rocked by a terrible app update, but here we are. I’m a librarian who relies on quality news reporting to stay on top of current events and new book releases. But now that I have to wrestle with this new interface, I can no longer safely use this app while I’m driving. It’s a shame because my commute is pretty much all the free time I have. Losing the playlist and dealing with glitches all for a glossier look? I’m deeply saddened.

Still no playlist, do not bother updating. Thks for the new fast forward and rewind functions, about time for features to be added! But WHY would you EVER eliminated the playlists?!

Terrible change.

I agree with the reviewer who misses sampling options and a favorites list. Have the further problem that selecting a station automatically loads all feeds from that station, and turning off one simply activates the other. I have to close the app entirely to stop streaming. Ridiculous. I’ll listen, because NPR, but these seem like straightforward fixes.

One superior feature NPR news HAD over Apple New was that you could see 5-6 news titles on one screen. Now you get one! I want the old layout back!

The latest version is a very nice refresh, but you got rid of the main feature of the app that I use! Force press on the icon no longer has an option to play the National newscast. It has gone from one gesture to three taps, with waiting (yes, first world problems, I know).

What happened to the ability to do playlists? I miss the old app already.

Everyday I use this app I get more frustrated. Other reviews cover the issues consistently: playlist gone; hard to get local content from other local stations we happen to enjoy; harder to navigate. I understand that it may seem like a good idea to have fancy graphics, but there’s no good reason to remove features for it. Also, the graphics actually make it hard to navigate to what I am looking for (takes up a lot of real estate). The bottom line is I use the app to select the stories I want to hear and otherwise don’t want to spend a lot of time looking at or through the application. That’s not NPRs game. I hope you listen to your users this time. And, think about your users who commute to work. Really think about how busy professionals may want to use the app.

I used to load my playlist to my phone before getting into the car each morning and afternoon. I can't do that any more because there's no playlist. And I can't use the phone while driving because of the law. This app doesn't have any use for me.

One of the best parts of this app was being able to hand pick stories and put them in a custom queue for listening. Now it’s gone. Why, NPR?

So far, it appears that NPR has made the app prettier, but removed the functionality. Without being able to create a playlist and select individual stories to listen to, this app is basically worthless to me.

Playlist is gone, can‘t use this app anymore Goodbye NPR!

It was much better, more intuitive. Allowed easier a la carte listening. Lists were better than icons.

I don’t write reviews often, but the disparity between the recently revised NPR app and the old version is too great to ignore. The old app, while less ‘modern’ looking, felt less rigid, more customizable, and less cumbersome to use. The utility I miss the most was the ability to create playlists from stories from various NPR programs into one stream, and have that stream auto-play from one story to another. Now, if one plays an individual story in Morning Edition, for instance, it does not auto-play the next story; one has to go back into the app and manually play the next story or the entire program must be played in order for a “playlist” to be created. It’s cumbersome and sometimes dangerous, particularly while listening on the road. I can fathom that this system forces the listener to listen to 1) more ads (which seem to be auto-generated in between stories and could not be before with self-created playlists), and 2) more stories (forcing the listener to listen the entire program instead allowing the ability to choose). Please bring back the functionality of the old app. I have spent the better half of this morning searching for whether it is possible to reinstall old versions of apps in iTunes.

I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in the redesigned app. You have jettisoned all of the functionality for streaming radio. To the point, an app with that playlist is completely worthless – I might as well just listen to the radio (which I simply don’t have the opportunity to do anymore). Moreover, adding large, fancy graphics makes it far more difficult to navigate the information needed to make a decision about whether to listen to a story or not. You don’t have to package NPR like a USA Today news stand. We know how to read. Are used to be able to navigate various interesting stories, aggregate them in my playlist, and then listen to them seriatim while driving, while walking, while doing household chores, etc . . . A NPR app without a playlist is utterly worthless.

Bring back the Playlist feature please!

NPR has been my go to news app for years. It just worked. Clean easy and to the point. The new app resembles click bait. I’m looking for an alternative news source now. Bummer.

I had a well curated list of stations that made it easy to catch the best of NPR’s locally produced music programs. Pow, no more off into the garbage. Used to love this app, all my favorite stations in one spot a great tool for frequent travelers. The next version better bring the favorite list back. BTW, I contribute to many of those stations and will be letting them know during Spring Pledge Drive.

The old npr podcasts were great. I could choose what I wanted to listen to, download it, listen offline, and save stories to listen to later. The NPROne app is terrible, but at least the old NPR News app allowed me to choose and save my own stories. This new thing precludes all of that. It’s enough to make me cancel my public radio membership.

I love NPR. One of my favorite things to do is walk my dog while listening to my local NPR station. However, it has one of the worst apps I have ever used. It hardly works with WiFi, and for some reason is slightly better without it but still terrible. It constantly crashes, sounds bites get jumbled together, the live stream of local radio stations is of horrific quality. The only reason I gave three stars is because of my love of NPR, but the app itself would get -5 ⭐️ if that option existed.

Please bring back the ability to make a playlist. I don’t always want to listen to all of the stories from a particular show (eg morning edn), choosing to skip some that don’t interest me. In the new app it’s either listen to “all” as they were aired or only “one at a time.” Makes it difficult to curate the stories I like to play in a row when I’m in the shower. I constantly have to dry off my hand and hit “play” on the next story I want to listen to when the previous one is finished unless I let them ALL play in a row (which is just TMI to listen through with my limited three s’s morning routine). Hope that wasn’t TMI :) Thank you NPR! Love y’all! Five stars, otherwise.

I used this app daily (and recognized that in my membership tier). I would develop a playlist from “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered’ and listen over the course of the day. Well no more playlists. You have to either listen to all (which doesn’t seem to work for me) or listen one by one constantly looking at your phone. Not so good when driving. I will move to podcasts and listen to news briefing only. Bring back the playlist and I will be back!

I loved the previous NPR app. I could easily stream my favorite stations as well as glance at the latest news. I find this version to be cumbersome, cluttered and frustrating to use.

They took away two features that I used every morning while listening to the news: 1 - ability to add to a playlist so I could start and stop listening to a segment and then pick back up again. 2 - quick ability to share. I now have to use multiple clicks to get share a story (and then can’t go back to continuous listening where the segments okay one after another).

Thank you for your reply. I found the programs located under the OnDemand Tab.👍

For the new version, we can’t save the stories we want to listen in a list and have the app automatically play them one by one. That’s very inconvenient to manually click and listen to each story only after the previous one is finished.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PLAYLIST FEATURE????????????????? What IDIOTS thought this new version would be an improvement over the last version???????? The last version just needed a few improvements and it would have been perfect. How do I get the old version back???!!!!!!!!??????!!!?????? BRING BACK THE PLAYLIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The old app just needed an ability to (a) download episodes rather than only stream and (b) have a choose all or choose selected function so you didn’t have delete Already played episodes one by one. I am seriously considering not giving money this year because of this and I’ve been donating for probably 13+ years.

I used to love to be able to pick and choose which stories to que for listening, in the on demand section of the app. I have a shorter commute, and might have heard half of the day’s stories on ME or ATC. Now, it only lets me do *all* for a given program, or only one at a time which is not safe when driving. Please bring back the ability to edit which stories can be played!

The new app removed a huge amount of functionality, including curating your experience using the playlist. Read the other reviews for the other features removed. Someone sold the NPR team the idea their app needed a refresh, but didn't want to implement the harder features. The new app is pretty, but also pretty useless if you were using it to do customized listening to NPR. Now you can basically just listen to the live stream, which you can do in dozens of other apps, or listen to individual stories, which you can do on the web site. The entire purpose of this being a phone app--creating a custom playlist for curated listening--is gone.

I primarily use the NPR app to catch up on (read) news I missed on the radio. The pervious version of the app made it ease to navigate between articles by swiping left or right. No so in the new version. You have to go back to the feed and manually select the next article - and possibly having to hunt for it if the feed refreshed. Ugh.

Can no longer see what files have audio and go right to them, have to open each one individually. News cast is hidden under on-demand. Took a while to find it. Bummer.

The new version of this app has usability issues that ought to have been addressed before go live. For example: * Audio controls (volume, resume, etc) don’t work from lock screen * “Save station” does not work * Audio stream drops far more often on the new app. Poor quality. A step backwards.

I listen Exclusively to NPR. I donate to my local stations. I loved the NPR news app. NPR One doesn’t seem to have the same capabilities. Hopefully I missing something. I want the old app back!

I love NPR. Eliminating playlists must be a concession to local stations. I get it. But it’s not sustainable. I’m a sustainer with my local NPR station (WUNC) but I also liked the ability to create playlists from the app. Could you combine them? Have support messages by local stations show up in playlists? You’ll need to find a way to merge playlists and podcasts with local stations to continue to thrive. This app isn’t it. Just my $.02.

Why can’t I save multiple stations anymore? It was a great app now I’m frustrated remembering how easy it was to swap between stations..

I really like this update to this app, it’s a cleaner and more modern design overall. However, they removed my single most-used feature of the old version: the ability to force-press the app and have it play the latest headlines immediately! I love this feature and used it multiple times a day, and had I known it was gone I never would’ve updated. New app updates should improve the user experience, and removing a beautiful feature like this for no apparent reason is frustrating and serves no purpose. I sincerely hope that this is a small oversight which will be corrected within upcoming update.

there’s nothing intuitive about the new app. I usually listen to the hourly news followed by 5-10 news articles that I add to the queue each morning. I don’t think that’s possible anymore - or if it is I can’t figure out how to do it.

As many others say in their negative reviews, one star is too high a rating for this new version but it’s impossible to write a zero-star review. All the features I used in the old app have been eliminated. I have a Primary Station, yes, but I browse to other stations on a regular basis for shows ‘my’ station doesn’t carry. The process of switching to another station is cumbersome and results in the former ‘Primary Station’ being replaced, so it has to be painstakingly re-selected when one wants to return it. Additionally, the previous version listed all the streams of any selected station, making it simple to select HD1, HD2, etc. The new version makes it nearly as cumbersome to select a stream as it is to choose the Primary Station in the first place. Needless to say, I have deleted the new NPR One app - it’s replaced by individual apps for the stations I listen to. Fortunately by now most individual stations have fine apps of their own. Not as convenient as the previous NPR One version, but a great improvement over the new version.

I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in the redesigned app. You have jettisoned all of the functionality for streaming radio. To the point, an app with that playlist is completely worthless – I might as well just listen to the radio (which I simply don’t have the opportunity to do anymore). Moreover, adding large, fancy graphics makes it far more difficult to navigate the information needed to make a decision about whether to listen to a story or not. You don’t have to package NPR like a USA Today news stand. We know how to read. Are used to be able to navigate various interesting stories, aggregate them in my playlist, and then listen to them seriatim while driving, while walking, while doing household chores, etc . . . A NPR app without a playlist is utterly worthless.

The best feature of the old NPR News app was the ability of the listener to create a personal playlist from a menu of stories from various NPR programs. They’ve taken that functionality away. This app is essentially useless to me now, and I’m deleting it.

They’ve taken an app that admittedly needed an update and made it cleaner and at the same time less functional. They left out the old apps best feature! The playlist! Where is the playlist? They’ve taken an app that was constantly in use and turned it into something I will only use occasionally.

Please carefully consider the recent reviews. As with many reviewers, I am sorry I updated the app. Lost are many features I counted on. I have deleted the app as it is not useful for me in its current format. Sorry to see it go. If you provide the previous version, I will be back!

Why did you take away playlists?!?!

The Home Page has not updated on it’s own since I installed the newest version. I reinstalled it and the headline story finally updated. But it has not changed since that (2 days). There is no date showing on the page. In the previous version you saw the date when you “pulled” down the page to force an update of the home page.

It used to be easy to support more than one station and switch between them. Not any more. You only get one favorite. It’s maddening.

I don’t even want to use this app with its new “upgrade”.

Cannot create playlist of news stories to listen to later (such as while driving or at the airport). Used this feature DAILY for many years. Now GONE! WHY???

Horrible update. This has completely destroyed any reason to try to listen to NPR programs via this app. All the great things about the old app were removed and replaced with a cumbersome, time-consuming mess. Bring back the old app and trapshooting this monstrosity!

The playlist feature made the NPR News app my favorite of more than 100 iPhone apps. Queuing a long list of personally-selected stories was easy to do, and always delighted me because I could create my very own version of NPR. Why remove this key feature? When can you bring it back?

Why can’t we create a custom playlist to stream. I used to create a list and listen as I fell asleep. Now you can only play one item at a time, or play all the stories. Very disappointing and unfortunately NPR programming will no longer be available to me. Thank god for the BBC podcasts.

Honestly the developer should be ashamed. They took away so many features that were used for such as a “search button“ and the ability to create a playlist. Yeah also keep saying to check my Internet connectivity even though it was playing and working fine and had strong connection. This app maybe not be worth my time anymore.

The new NPR app has dropped the playlist feature, which I used to build of stories that interested me. In the new app, it seems you cannot select the next item to listen to until the current one has played.

This update DESTROYED a great app!! I have been customizing playlists for years and now that feature has inexplicably been removed. WHY remove functionality that is so useful. New app is nor difficult to navigate. Nothing to like about it. PLEASE bring back the old version

I’m having a lot of trouble getting the audio stream to work. It intermittently stops or doesn’t start at all even though the play icon is showing.

The recent version change removed the ability to selectively program items from a broadcast, removed re-ordering, looses continuous play of a set of items from a broadcast episode, etc. The loss of customization and control of playlists is just annoying and drove me away from the app.

The UX is horrid compared to previous version. You can no longer swipe to next article - have to return home, scroll click. And that annoyed me in the first minute. No telling what I’ll find next.

I used the old app EVERY DAY! 30 seconds to make a nice lengthy custom playlist and voila, 2-3hrs of lovely NPR! Now I have to pick and play for every single piece and no custom playlists?! What is this, USA Today...CNN...Fox News...”You get what we want you to get”??! You’ve broken my NPR loving heart. Please bring back the custom self-mixed multi-program/multi-story versatile playlist functionality or you will lose me! Please, please, please...

Used the app on the train everyday going to work. You could update the stories in the morning and read the news on train without cell service. With the new update, you cannot. It’s now the same as the other news apps. But it’s ok, when you do have service it’s now the same as cnn with nice pictures and ads every 3-4 stories.

Updated app is terrible. 2 stars due to decreased usability. Pre update an easy 5 Stars. Please fix.

Missing option to create playlists of stories. Design is not intuitive. Don’t really understand why lot of features were removed.

Please bring back playlists and favorites I didn’t use npr one for the same reasons I no longer use this one. Very annoying

Snazzy but not built with the user in mind.

This newest update is garbage. I have already downloaded a new, better app. This version is horrible.

Don’t update. They took away useful features like the Widget. NPR, give me my widget back!

The most useful feature of the old app was the ability to curate your own listening by making a playlist. This is not in the current version, and is a terrible loss. Playlists allow the user to make the best use of their time, and to listen to what's most relevant at a given moment. Please bring back this feature!

This new version is horrible! It has slick new graphics but has lost much of the actual functionality of the old app. It is frustrating to skip through stories and to not be able to download content. I don’t understand how this is better.

Wow! I’ve seen lots of apps do major upgrades, but this new NPR app is so radically different than the previous version. Yeah, it’s a lot flashier and looks nice, but I sort of feel like they turned the app into a web browser for reading instead of a listening app. Hello? The ‘R’ stands for radio. And what’s with getting rid of the playlist? I’m about to get in the car for an hour drive I quickly make a playlist before driving so I don’t have to fiddle with my phone while driving. Or I’m working in the garden. Or cooking. Or skiing. Lots of times I just want to listen and I don’t want be constantly fiddling with the phone. Or maybe I’m checking out headline quickly and then want to save the full story to listen to later. Why get rid of playlists? And talk about basic misses. The old app was really good about always remembering what I was listening too and exactly where I left off. The new app forgets often. So I first have to go find the story again and then I have to figure out where in a 40 minute podcast I left off. So basic! All in all this has been a disastrous upgrade in my opinion.

Without the playlist function, the app is like a fretful child requiring constant manipulation, or simply a portable radio: I don’t want or need either of these. Farewell, beloved companion whilst I multi-tasked - hopefully you will soon be restored to your former glory and utility, for I will take you back wholeheartedly.

Well. I’m a lifetime NPR supporter and almost constant listener—but this new version of the app certainly is disappointing. I’m sure plenty of others will review it thoroughly, so I’ll just cover the greatest sorepoint for me: I live in the eastern time zone, but usually get up after 8:00 AM. I start listening to Morning Edition on my local NPR station, but at 9, when it switches to a music program before I’ve been able to hear the entire Morning Edition program, I change to an NPR station in Tacoma WA, which streams Morning Edition until noon my time. That has worked beautifully for me for many years. Now comes the new version of the NPR News app. (It didn’t come gracefully, either. The automatic upgrade balked halfway through, and I had to delete the app manually and re-install it as the new version.) Now I find that I’m obliged to declare one station as my “Primary” station. Pbbbbbt! It’s no longer possible to have a list of “Favorite” stations, which made it easy to choose my own listening times for the national programs and to listen to local programming for the dozen US cities I’ve lived in and still think of as my hometowns. I’m almost afraid to mention that a workaround is to use the “recently streamed” list at the bottom of the Primary station page, because that might give the app’s developers a bad idea. So as you can see, I’m sorely disappointed by this new version. I’d have been MUCH happier with the previous version with a clock-radio function that would automatically wake me up with Morning Edition and shut itself off at night. I may decide to go back to listening on one of the several good third-party iPhone apps, instead.

I really appreciated the old app! In the new app, there is no way to distinguish the audio versus written files (I use audio while getting ready in mornings, doing laundry, etc). There seems to be NO search features, how can I find a story? There seems to be NO playlist that I can load with audio stories that I want to play, it is completely useless and inflexible. All the great features that allowed control over content seem to be gone. Lists of stories used to allow us to see quickly what we want to hear more about, now it’s all icon based using thumbnails. Ugh. How do I find the audio/radio lists? If I could go back in time and bring the old version back, I would! DO NOT update if you use the old app and like it fine.

Where’s my playlist? Sure the new layout looks slick, but it’s not even close to as functional as the last one. It use to be that if I accidentally closed the app, when pulled back up it kept track of where it was in the playlist. Now, I have to start something like morning edition over and then skip forward. Same thing happens if I’m looking at what else is available while a story is playing, accidentally trigger the other clip and you’re screwed. Weaksauce!

I miss the old app. I loved being able to pick the 4-6 stories I want to hear, load them into a playlist and go. Now I have to listen to one, then pick them next, listen, etc. Not at all convenient. So now I find myself listening to less NPR News

Loved the old app that let you read a print story without a cell or WiFi connection. Gave me freedom from being a signal hostage. Trust NPR beyond other news outlets but it is much less available than before. Has a 37 year supporter questioning membership. VERY disappointed.

Loved the old app. Hate the new one. Like NPR One, the new app is user unfriendly, confusing, and hard to navigate. The old app worked really well. I don’t understand why NPR keeps “improving” things in such terrible ways. Love NPR, but this is disappointing.

Is there any way to save my preferred station? I listen first thing in the morning and any extra steps just make me irritated. So every morning, I’m irritated with NPR, even though I love it. Come on, help. Don’t put up barriers to listening, because on apps and websites the more steps someone has to take, the more likely they they are to abandon the action.

No playlist!!!!!!

Very annoyed that this version removes all of the features I depended on and replaced them with... nothing. Sure, it looks a little better, but everything else about it is less usable than the last version. Playlists? Gone. Search? Forget it. Can’t even add more than one station to your favorites. It feels like they’re trying to cripple features to keep you with your local station over the air.

Absolutely terrible change! I can now only have one favorite station pre-selected!? In the old app I could have multiple “favorite” stations that would allow me to jump back and forth between the home region/town I moved away from (and will eventually move back to), and my local station where I live today. I now have to go in and manually search for one or the other because I only get one station on the favorites list. HATE this. All these changes to ram the ONE NPR branding and look down our throats in a new app, that actually loses functionality and is worse for the actual listener. I could care less if the app background is white or grey if I have to now go through a bunch of extra clicks and picks to have to search for my two stations all the time.

You moved/removed my cheese. I thought the previous versions were simple to navigate. I use the iPhone app every day and multiple times each day. Now I’m struggling to find the stories and programs I used to easily browse and either read or add in my playlist. However, the most frustrating loss is the inability to create a list of favorite radio stations that I could easily go to and select. As an example, If I missed Morning Edition in my time zone I could go to another NPR station in a time zone 3-6 hours away to listen there. Now I can only select and list a single radio station, no ability to create a quick to reference favorites list. So each time I want to switch I have to remember the station ID or city, search for it and then select it. This app is nearly useless to me now. I contribute to WAMU, WABE, WGBH AND KCRW every year because I frequently listen to each. Your app re-designer has failed people like me. I’ll be installing one of the internet radio apps and using it instead - BOO

I loathe this new format. Why change a good thing? I can't navigate your new site to find what I want. It wasn't broken; WHY did you feel the need to change it? BRING BACK THE OLD FOR AT NOW!!

I wish I hadn’t “upgraded” to this version! It has lost the ability to create a playlist, and worst of all, it has lost the ability to create a list of favorite stations. I now have to search for a station EVERY TIME I RUN THE APP! I used to be able to save stations from around the country because I like to hear regional news from KQED (San Francisco), KUNC (Northern Colorado), KCUR (Kansas City), WNPR (New York), etc. to name a few. Now the app can’t even remember my local station (KUT in Austin) and I have to “search” for it every time! This is VERY ANNOYING!

So much is lost here. I will turn to the WNYC app more often now.

NPR has always been my favorite app. BUT, I was so beyond frustrated while trying to navigate this new format. The old app design allowed you to quickly scan the top headlines, news etc... NEW FORMAT is an overwhelming cluttered mess. Please reconsider the new design - I miss the clean, simplistic, user friendly, no frills format.

They ability to create a favorites list is gone. I’ve lived in a lot of different cities and I would like to be able switch between them quickly while traveling without the risk of crashing my car. The load time for live radio is also noticeably longer. iPhone 6, though there is no reason that should effect this.

I've NEVER written a review for an app, but had to for this, because I love NPR. Unfortunately, I hate this NPR app! Ugh! Yes, it's fancy and cleaner looking, but the one thing I love is missing - the ability to choose which stories I wanted to add to my playlist. Now, I have to listen to ALL of Morning Edition, or individually press play on one story at a time. I can't do that while driving. In the past, I added stories from 4 different programs and curated a playlist of news I wanted to listen to. Please bring that feature back!!

Great job love the UX

Major downgrade with no ability to creat a playlist of news stories. I have a half hour commute to work and before I leave I was used to creating my playlist of news stories for the ride from Morning Edition in the morning and All Things Considered in the evening. Now I can’t do that. Major bummer. Hope this feature gets added back.

This app could not be worse. The old app, every show was listed on one screen. Now different shows are in different menus, so to find a particular show you have to switch screens, then scroll through icons that are in no particular order. Most dangerous is that there is no continuous play in a show (like morning edition). Unless you listen to the show from the beginning, you have to tap on every single 4 minute news item you want to hear. In a car this is extremely dangerous. In the old app you could tap on a news story in the middle of the show and the app would play the rest from there. previously there was play list you could add to. I’m going to junk this app as soon as a developer makes something better. Praying that is soon.

Bring back the old version please. This version doesn’t allow us to make playlists, which is the most frustrating change. Also it’s basically like the NPR One app, which I tried briefly and deleted. If I wanted to use the NPR One app then I would download the NPR One app! Really huge mistake by NPR on this most recent update.

First ya’ll screwed it up with NPR ONE, now you removed most of the basic functionality of the NPR App. People ask me what kind of music I listen to and I say ....“NPR”. So you can imagine how frustrating it is that I can no longer easily access my favorite NPR programs on the app nor can I create my daily playlist from the episode lists of each program. I guess I should just tune into the local fm music station.

The new version of this app is not ready for roll out. Losing the playlist, search, and multiple favorite station features is a major fail. Instead, the app is redesigned as though visual content is the focus. We use this to stream radio content - why would all these visual features matter? Why make users return after every story to run the next rather than letting us create playlists and run them without having to babysit the app? The developers don’t realize that users travel and listen to several stations- why limit to a single saved station? I can’t believe the developers ever used this app before messing it up.

Thks for the new fast forward and rewind functions, about time for features to be added! But WHY would you EVER eliminated the playlists?!

I cannot figure out what this new version has to offer. I love the previous version & found it very sweet user-friendly. Now there’s no longer a search function. I used that frequently. And you can’t create a playlist. Very disappointed. If it’s not broke...

Wish they hadn’t removed 3D Touch support to quick launch the Hourly News Update.

Best part was the favorites list I could save and playback later. Can’t do that with new app.

What happened to TED radio hour podcast? The old interface was much easier to navigate. This new one is over complicated for no added functionality.

By doing away with the playlist, NPR effectively done away with the most useful feature. Now, if I start playing a show, but then get interrupted or stop, I’m not able to pick up where I left off. I listen to NPR abroad and don’t want a “local” station—I want to curate a list of things to listen to. This new app is almost as infuriating as the misguided NPR1 app that led me to stop listening to NPR. Alas, I will now be switching to podcasts. Goodbye, NPR.

The old NPR app allowed to pick several favorite stations. It was much easier to make a search for an old story or topic you liked. IT HAD CAR TALK AS A PODCAST!!! What happened???? Please bring back the old version. This one is subpar.

Easier to read.

Dear NPR App Folks, Do you know that new versions shouldn’t remove functionality? Or perhaps warn your users? With the old app, I liked getting on-demand content from my local station WNYC. I can’t with the new. I also liked to listen to Local stations from other cities, but that’s harder to do. Look. I love NPR, but the apps always disappoint. I should know better than to have upgraded UPDATE: It just occurred to me I can get the WNYC app so listen to local programs and national. So now, why do I need this app??

I mostly miss the ability to make a contiguous playlist. Now I have to play each story by story. Also, it’s difficult to get stories by program, such as what was played yesterday on ATC, which I missed on the radio. This app is not easy to navigate.

The reason why this app was great was the fact I could make my own playlist of news stories and listen on my own time. Now the app is useless and you have to click on individual stories instead of just playing several stories in a row. I don’t know what the point of the app is anymore. I’m so disappointed.

The new version will not let you save different NPR stations nor can you create a playlist from your favorite shows. I should have stuck with the old one

Absolutely hate that I can not make a playlist anymore (and I lost everything I had saved). I’m not sure I will listen as much anymore to Morning Edition & ATC because I have to stop what I’m doing to push play every couple minutes. I also have NPR One but you can’t save as much as the old app. I’m bummed that my days will not be as informative or entertaining as they used to be.

Updated app doesn’t allow you to make a playlist 👎. Would be helpful, if when listening to Morning Edition, there is some indication to the listener that a segment has already been listened to in the list of segments

If the playlists are not brought back soon I will likely delete the app as I will have no use for it.

Why on earth have y'all ruined the ios npr news app? Read your reviews! There's too many faults to explain in detail. What compelled you to remove Playlist functionality? It looks like so much effort was put into UI design, but with no regard for the features and functionality that made the previous version great. I'm a paid member of npr and the ios app is my primary means of consumption. I'm not inclined to continue my paid support if this app doesn't seriously improve. Read your reviews. I'm not alone in this thinking.

The one positive thing I have to say is that the look of the new app is cleaner and more modern (although with some caveats). However, many of the functions of the old app are removed and dearly missed, including: * Ability to save multiple station streams as favorites * Ability to mark programs as favorites, for quick access to their episodes * “Tiled” organization of stories on the home page for better information density — particularly on the iPad, there is an enormous amount of wasted white space Here’s hoping that this is a first step — an update in design — and functionality of the original app will be brought back.

Old app was great, and I had the ability to create a country-wide playlist of stations and shows. Please bring the ability to do that! I don’t go to npr for slick graphics or videos... it’s the audio content that’s important to me. Please, make an update for PLAYLISTS!!!

The lack of the playlist option is a dealbreaker for the new NPR app. It allows me to play what I want when I want. I do this almost every day. I support NPR with donations. It should support listeners with an app that works for us.

New app missing play lists. So I have to press play for each story I want to hear... n longer que up 10 stories. This is a major FAIL and makes using this app in a car “illegal” now. Not sure why remove playlists but big thumbs down!! SAD!

I travel and have homes in two states. I support multiple public stations. The earlier app was a gem of functional simplicity. I wish I had not updated. Gone now is the favorite station function that enabled me to have several stations preselected. Further, the print is smaller and hard to read, a real problem when I gripe for my phone with “morning” eyes trying to play the news. This is an example of if it worked so very well why did you fix it?

Absolutely hate the latest update since it removes the critical queue functionality. For years, I’ve always teed up 6 or 7 stories to listen to before bed - just enough time to fall asleep, and just the stories I most wanted to hear. Now the only option is to stream an entire program, which is way too long, with no way to listen to the stories you really want to hear or skip those you don’t. Now the app is useless to me. The new NPR One is worse. What a shame.

I loved the old app. You could pick favorite stations across the country and different NPR programs. I loved being able to find my favorite NPR programs on different stations and also to hear the local news in other places I’ve lived. The new app has none of those features. I already have an app to listen to my local station. Why did you change it?

I’ve always liked saving segments of ME, ATC and other shows. Sometimes they build up but I can always clear them out when at the gym or on a long road trip. Now - you can’t save segments. Missed Monday’s ATC? You can’t go back to download segments. Now you can either listen to Tuesday’s ATC in its entirety, or have to stop and choose which segment you want to listen to. Not at all convenient.

Please bring back playlists and access to programs not at my local station Why did you take it away NPR? Why????

I love NPR! Why is it so hard for public broadcasting to keep up with technology? The previous NPR app wasn’t very good, but this one is even worse. Come on NPR, I know you put a lot of effort into what really counts, great radio. The problem is your delivery via these terrible apps just makes it so hard for us to receive your terrific product! Please try and do better! BTW - here are just some of the problems: On demand stories don’t play continuously. Can’t save more than one favorite station. Can’t save favorite shows. No more playlist, meaning I can’t cue up shows for long drives. Again, please.........

The new app is nicely designed, but I had over 100 audio news articles of interest saved in my play list and now they are ALL GONE! I am so bummed out! I use that playlist to stock up on audio content for long drives. Please fix this!

The new app (4/2/2018) looks fancier but functions terribly. With the old app I would listen to a few stories on my playlist as I got ready for work but now you are forcing me to listen to the whole show or keep hitting stories one at a time, how annoying! In conclusion, just give me the playlist back!

Access to NPR news is excellent, and the new app look great. But, in the older version you could create a playlist of the stories you wanted to hear, and that’s missing in this version. Alas, my morning shower routine has been altered!

Why did you all remove the playlist? Why did you all remove the playlist? Why did you all remove the playlist? Why did you all remove the playlist? Why did you all remove the playlist?

I’ll rely on the News app from now on....

Where did everything go? Love the station Hate the new app. I work overseas and listen to NPR nearly every day, now that will zero times a week.

Lost: Favorites list. I travel all over the country and have listened to local NPR stations—and sometimes listen to those stations when back home. Can’t do that now. Gained: Ease of use, functionality. Given a choice, I’d like the old version back.

the one feature I used almost daily is now gone in the most recent update: you can no longer make a playlist of stories. "on demand" makes you play all the stories and you can't mix and match stories from different shows. bummer. big npr fan, but the newest app is seriously lacking.

No playlist. No deleting stories played. No d**n good. How do I restore the old version?

I really miss being able to pick and choose from the day’s news segments. Sometimes I don’t want to listen to all of All Things Considered; sometimes I want to listen to the lighter stories and the puzzle!

The new version does away with playlists, including my 200+ playlist. Now each story has to be found individually. What is the benefit of a podcast if I have to open my phone every four minutes to find the next program?

The new app is sadly designed around reading and tapping, as opposed to queueing and listening. NPR news puts out high quality news and stories. I don’t have the driving time I used to have (thankfully), but in that absence, I would queue up the most relevant items and let the playlist run when I had the time. While I used the old app frequently, I doubt I will be using the new app.

PLEASE stop messing up a good thing! The new version of the app is far inferior to the old version. You’ve swapped functionality for a more modern format and it’s really disappointing. I had a playlist of 40 stories to listen to on the train this morning and they’re just gone. No warning. I had five member stations in my favorites that I listened to regularly at different times—now gone. I’ve been a loyal listener for more than 20 years and a heavy user of your app since it first launched. I’m so disappointed with the app change. This is not an improvement!! The format isnt even more appealing, it’s allows fewer stories to scroll through quickly, it’s harder to find favorite shows and discover new ones. This is awful. Please bring back the old app!!

I agree with the prior review. I had a play list of NPR stations. Now this is gone. I wish I could change back to the prior NPR App

So sad that I had automatic update selected which auto installed the new app. Things I do not like: 1. I had created a list of radio station favorites and now it appears I can only designate a primary. I really dislike this “feature”. Perhaps I just haven’t yet found a way to create a list of favorites? Hope that is so. 2. Why must programs have big fat icons instead of an easy to scroll list? 3. The display of top news topics also seems to take up more space, has lots of white around each story, and just seems less easy on the eyes and less easy to scroll and access. Disappointed.

I used the old one all the time and now it won’t play at all. Leave your fingers off and go “fix” NPR One. It is awful and you can’t hurt it. Screw that one up and no one would notice! Just put the old one back like you found it and go outside and play. Seriously, it doesn’t play at all now.

The biggest disappointment is that the playlist feature is gone. I used that nearly every day. I want to spend 2 minutes selecting the stories I want to listen to, hit play, and just listen. I don’t want to have to stop every few minutes to pick another story. Please bring back the playlist.

The New (Ver 4)NPR App is a step backward. (2018) 1) The Favorite NPR Stations List is gone. If you want to stay in one spot and listern to stations in Alaska , California, Boston and Texas, the new app just made things a lot more difficult than the old app. 2) Once you press update, Itunes won't like you go back to the previous version 3) If you want to find a program like "Wait Wait don't Tell Me" the new app requires you to page through many, many, many screens to find your favorite program so don't try doing this in a car. In the past the program list was simple text, easy to find on a single screen. 4) Switching Devices has changed and if you forget to change devices, your program gets shut off mid-sentence and forces you through an ad, so you miss a lot of the program before you are reconnected. Not very user friendly way to exit or enter a car while staying connected. 5) Finding stations near you became easier, but finding stations away from you, is a lot more difficult because the station list by state and city is gone. This is a real step backward. Bring back the old version of NPR and let us use it.

I also miss the old app that allowed me to create a playlist of segments of shows, eg All Things Considered. Now, if I want to listen to the segments I missed when I was not in the car, I have to play each segment separately. Interestingly, you CAN create a playlist on the iPad app, but not the app for the iPhone. This is discriminatory.

What made the developers think this is an improvement? No playlist is a MAJOR flaw! Cannot easily browse and select the stories or programs I want. Horrible job. I am deleting it immediately!

Disappointed to see that NPR opted for form over function. The app still works fine, but does a lot less than the old app.