Seattle Times Mobile App Reviews

I hope the developers are reading these, because there’s little more annoying than starting to read a story and then finding that it’s cut off and the rest of the story is inaccessible via the app.

Seattle is fortunate to have a first-rate news organization at a time when our democratic ideals are under attack.

Whenever I click on a notification, the app crashes.

Much to improve with this app

I enjoy the Seattle Times on line as well as in hard copy - particularly the “FYI Guy” and Danny Westneat’s column. Thanks for keeping it going!!

Add a Today’s paper function, so I can avoid reading articles already read. Also, allow me to check off an article as read.

Filled with great local news stories

I get up in the am before our paper arrives, paper IMO is still best for the newspaper. I liked the print replica edition, but lately it has a hard time loading the latest edition. So, I tried the app. The layout drifts from left to right and it doesn’t have sections like the print edition.

I like the app but would like to be able to search for articles I see in the print version. I have to go to the online version to do that.

Stop making me rate the app

The articles are written on a six grade level. I thought Seattle was supposed to be of a higher intellectual level. So why do we have to read this watered down garbage? And when you switch completely to videos , I’m out of here Also, it wouldn’t hurt to put the tiniest little bit of humor into a story where it is appropriate we are not all dull headed socialists with no sense of humors.

Very little unbiased reporting

I've lived in KC,MO; Spgfld,Ill; several mid-west towns and find no paper comes close to the Times with professional opinions & current news stories. My carrier is always prompt (after 15 years). Just one great paper. Clark Mefford PS hard to figure out who puts Sun paper together. Front page in middle of pack etc.

The paper is very good. We have both the print copy and the digital. My biggest complaint is that there is no online search button I can access to look up an article when on the digital. Seems ridiculous.

I’m loving the digital paper! We live on the Kitsap Peninsula and current information regarding ‘Westside Issues’ and what’s happening in Olympia can be difficult to access! Thanks Seattle Times for providing me with a broader view!

Why can’t you read offline like USA Today

Video links often don’t work, poor writing and typos. Not worth you time or money.

As a 19 year subscriber, I have seen a significant deterioration in the content and objectivity of the paper. The news section is a cut and paste essentially from The NY Times, Wash Post, and LA Times. I choose to read the news and make my own conclusion, not have the paper’s agenda strewn throughout each article. We aren’t stupid out here but the paper treats us that way. The Local news and Sports sections are ok but I can get that news online. The saddest part is when the editor uses a full page to pat himself on the back for winning the state-level print awards against such tough competition as the papers in smaller cities across the state. And the price for this keeps increasing.

Thank you. While I also subscribe to national and international newspapers, the ST is my first to read every day, to include the replica edition when traveling. James Cullen Seattle 98112

Started to read Seattle Times in 1950. First article I can remember reading entirely was Hugh McElhaney running wild in UW victory over the Cougars that Nov day. Over the years I have tried to read it daily while I lived in the area. Does the ST struggle at times? They do politically but always manage to get through it. I hope they don’t fold, cuz sports, travel, entertainment & local news always excellent.

As a paid subscriber to half a dozen newspapers, including the Seattle Times, I will say the Seattle Times app is easily the worst newspaper app I have encountered. Simply a horrible user experience in every way. App content appears to update only sporadically with articles failing to appear even several hours after they have been posted elsewhere online. The organization of articles by subject area is inconsistent, at best. Articles also are not sorted by time/date, making it harder still to find what you are looking for. These problems would not be as annoying if there were a simple search function, but of course this app does not have one.

Tech hub of the country but you guys can’t get it together? Your website is broken. The app might have been a solution to this frustration except it’s designed without a search feature. Seriously? At this point what the hell am I paying for?

i love the seattle times for local news but i find myself reading the la times or nyt apps cuz their interface is nicer. in addition to mere aesthetics, i find that it is much easier to consume a wider variety of content with their better designed apps. often, the most interesting and relevant articles i find through the seattle times facebook posts.

Keep up the good local work with the likes of Westneat & columnists such as Brooks and diverse commentaries. We appreciate the press more than ever.

App gets jarbled in iPad

This local resource is a treasure like none other, journalists that could be working anywhere, but putting their skills to work in a city and region with many complicated and critical issues... from Boeing’s Max problem to Amazon’s world dominance to the throngs of homeless. Great combination of hard news and features, plus sports coverage and best of all, Danny Westneat.

The main page is too wide on my 10.5” iPad Pro, causing awkward horizontal scrolling. Most other news feeds are a single narrow column, with large amounts of white space on either side. It’s obvious this app was designed primarily for phones rather than tablets, where I prefer to read the paper.

I like the app, but it crashes somewhat often and I wish the text were adjustable to be bigger.

We have a Sunday only subscription and have received one delivery on a Wednesday (Sunday paper) after numerous calls. The on-line is okay, however we enjoy the actual paper on Sunday.

Paid subscribers shouldn’t have to see animating ads at the bottom of the screen.

This app has many flaws in design and content. It’s quite interesting to click on a “news” item and find it dated days, weeks or months in the past. Also, some content takes forever to load and often the webpage has text overlaid, one article over another on the main page.

When I subscribe to a newspaper I expect a newspaper reading experience. This app has banner ads all over the screen, even for a paid subscriber account (at over $200/year). What an inexplicable, poor decision by the Seattle Times...

Although I am located in Northern California, I would not miss reading some news “online” with my “Seattle Times” app. I find the depth of coverage, the quality of authorship; sports/editorial sections superb! Thank you for staying loyal to critical analysis!

Sometimes your ads appear in the middle of an article and you can’t close it to read the full article. It bothers me that I have to pay for access and you force ads on me in an article that I paid to read.

It needs lots of work! The same stories appear in several different sections. Much of the news in the local section is not local. Sometimes there is just one tiny paragraph that says nothing more than the headline. And often the article just stops in the middle of a sentence and the rest of it won’t come up. I like reading the Seattle Times to keep up with what’s going on locally but you make it very difficult.

Doesn’t keep up well with breaking stories on Times website or Times Twitter. Desperately needs search function.

Very good app and subscribers and also download digital newspaper.

Newspaper websites can never be as pleasurable to read as the real thing. But their are much better examples out there than the Seattle Times site. Some sections ( such as “local news” ) aren’t categorized well. The search function is weak. The thing that I dislike the most is having older stories hang on too long. I’d like to read what’s new when I use the site, not what’s been in the news for the last seven days.

News should not be prejudiced. The news is for everyone, which means being equal to all.

Loads slowly. Doesn’t load at all sometimes. Loads half an article sometimes. Same articles appear as “news” for a week at a time

I’ve noted this previously but while the App is certainly useful it’s an utter time waste. You open an article and then, if you’re lucky, it takes 5-10 seconds to fully appear. Just as often you have to exit the article and then return to it, hoping it will then render. So frustrating

Kate Steinle verdict @ 6:00pm, Seattle Sounders final score @ 8:00. News next morning? Sounders game win! Steinle verdict no mention!!! Really? Not even manslaughter and you think not worth reporting? Don’t sell yourselves down the tube. You must see beyond your bias. We are not racists to see the injustice in the verdict and yet you don’t even report on it until 2 days later!! Really?! Important verdict but you stuff the reporting! How can we trust your reporting the news when you avoid timely reporting on issues that your customers might agree or disagree with. Your job is to report the news irrespective of the underlying bias you may have. Otherwise you become a “rag”! U r better than this!

Who charges to read the news paper

While I like the sports coverage and to some extent the coverage of state wide news the paper is sorely lacking in balanced coverage. If the news does not fit The Seattle Times left leaning narrative it will not be covered. It is so unfortunate that so many people do not see this. PLEASE try to become more objective in your news coverage

Not for an app per month. Too many news apps are free.

I haven’t had one single day where I felt I got all round local, country and international news. I do see google and yahoo news that give me a better perspective of the world around me

The electronic addition is skimpy. Articles are kept around too long cluttering the page. The articles freeze while ads are inserted.

Too often there are the same stories for days with few updated stories. It would be an improvement if articles were more time sensitive.

With all the ads on this app. It should be free to everyone. That’s why we rarely read it....

While I enjoy the app and use it often, lately the ads on some stories have been covering some of the content.

Impressive local newspaper. Balanced reporting. Mobile app could use work.

As a past resident, I generally like reading Seattle news daily and especially the commentary on local stories. Lately an odd pattern has shown up on my phone screen not allowing me to finish stories. I will be contacting customer service should this continue.

I miss comments too

We get a printed copy of the paper and I usually have opened up the app and read the sports section before I look at the paper. I’m continually amazed at how I don’t see stories on line that I see in the regular paper. My sister tells me that I can’t access it from the app and that I need to go to Seattletimes.com. It seems to work, but that seems ludicrous that a paid subscriber can’t read the most updated news from the app.

I live in Ohio and have family in Seattle. The quickest and easiest way to find out what is happening in Seattle as well as other parts of the world is the Seattle Times Online. It is well written and concise.

Layout 1* Subjects 1* Bias in writing -1*

I love the ST because of the focus reporting on homeless and transportation. Also great columnists in Westneat and Beaton.

I have a paid subscription to this newspaper and keep trying to use this app to read articles. Full screen video ads keep popping up. I’m careful and try not to click them, but the ads are relentless. I managed to read one story this morning before the first intrusive ad. I think I’ll see if they have a mobile website. This app is an unusable miserable experience that prevents me from reading stories. Why would you do this?

No search and is weather on here? I could be a m**** tho...

Most of the online news from Seattle seems to be about sports... Fit right in to many of the communities on the east side - and all the intellect that implies...

Won’t pay a $1 a month for on-line version Liberal bias

Even though I am a subscriber to the paper, and therefore should be able to see the electronic version free, I am appalled by the amount of ads. I contacted the circulation department about this(even threatened canceling my subscription), I was told that’s unfortunate but that’s the way it is.

The Seattle Times lets you access there main page but after only a couple times that you read an article they want you to spend money to join. No other national news apps require this and when I checked further there are hundreds of other cities that do not require this monetary requirement. I feel that this should be free to the general public. The Times makes enough on advertising and other monetary ventures. Most people do not have the ability to pay and keeping news from the public is not good. I can view all of there national news content on other news network internet apps for free. I can read Seattle news on one of the news networks apps for free. So why bother to read the Seattle Times? More over why should I be made to pay for this news outlet, when KIRO 7 and KOMO both provide free news. Get with it Seattle Times and help the public by providing free access to current news!

The most recent update added a large number of obnoxious ads which significantly slow down the app. The ads are much larger than the content. I realize that newspapers are desperate for ad revenue, but the impact of the latest changes are leading me to stop using the app!

The app recently introduced a new bug where there some some buttons the cover content. I was reading the recent article about childcare costs and couldn’t see past these super zoomed in icons.

The Seattle Times has become a liberals dream. I miss the more conservative side back in the 90’s. Too biased and socialist. Also, too bad you have to pay for more than 20 views for this paper to be free. I don’t visit too much anymore as a result of this.

Why can’t you allow subscribers to enter comments on letters to the editor? Why was this functionality removed? The majority of the letters you choose to post/print support Seattle Times liberal views.

The paper is way too left to be truly informative. Even the article “headlines” are infuriating as they imply things that just aren’t so. Until there is some hint of being objective in the reporting I would not spend a cent on the Seattle Times!

I don’t live or work in Seattle and yet I have a subscription to the Times. Why would I do that? Mostly because it is a very good, well researched , well written paper. Sure, a lot of the major national articles were first published by the New York Times or the Washington Post and that is OK. Despite what Trump says, facts are facts and once they are well reported, they should be widely distributed, rather than being constantly rewritten. Regional, Sate and local news however is a completely different story. None of it is likely to show up in the NYT, but to me these stories are important and I want to know, not just the story, but how it got there, why it is important and what is probably going to happen tomorrow because of what occurred today. There is no way I am going to get that by watching the Talking Heads on TV. And it is not likely to show up on AP or Reuter’s either. It is only because a critical mass of dedicated people have come together into one well run organization, not for the sole purpose of answering the questions I have posed together, but in the course of putting out the paper every day of the year, they address the above issues that are of interest to me in a highly credible manner. The writing is clear, the grammar and syntax are correct and the facts have been fact checked. When I put the paper down after reading it, I feel that I know what is going on in my part of the world. And I like that. Furthermore I am willing to pay for the privilege of having it delivered in hard copy to my mail box as well as electronically to my iPhone. In short, I am very pleased with your product and I hope that you can continue to produce it under what have to be trying economic conditions. Thank you Thomas E. O’Connor 937 5th Street Camano Island, WA 98382

End up closing the app after it takes me clear to the top of the list of articles after viewing an ad and having to scroll past pages of articles I’ve already seen. I would keep reading if it took me back to where I was before viewing ad.

Ads are displaying weird and covering up text so can’t read the stories on some articles.

Good writing. Unfortunately can’t give a 5 Star because the paper can be very biased at times.

Some stories are unreadable because ads and other mysterious symbols cover part of the text.

There is a bug in the application caused by the banner advertising that shift the text on top of the images so you can not read the article's title. I contacted Seattle time2 weeks ago and they are aware of the problem without fixing it. As a paid subscriber I would expect better customer service and a working application.

Every morning I look forward to keeping informed by reading the printed Seattle Times . It has local, national, and international news. In this era of online news where it is difficult to know if the information is accurate, the Seattle Times uses journalists who take pride in the reporting. This newspaper needs to be supported.

I was a regular subscriber until pop-up ads were included. What is the point of paying for a newspaper subscription and being hamstrung by dozens of pop up ads? Either make it free with pop-up and access to stories or take off the annoying pop-up ads. I canceled my subscription and now rarely is this app. I'm sad to see another newspaper die, but the editors of large publications just don't get how to be responsive to readers and advertisers.

Bare bones app. Lack of search feature is annoying.

If you only want to read one or two articles a month it shuts you off prematurely. You actually get 1 article every few months despite they’re stated policy. Read the articles on the web for free. The app stinks!

In a time of extreme confusion regarding real news, the Times is a trusted and reliable source. Coverage of the most important issues facing our community is thorough and unbiased. Beyond unbiased reporting they have some great columnists like Nicole Brodeur and Danny Westneat.

On my iPhone X, long articles are cut off at a certain point midway through. I can't scroll past. VERY annoying. If I really want to read the rest of the article, I have to look it up in the browser. Please fix!!

This app has a section that is in sports. It says it’s a listing of all local TV sports programs. But it does not work. I have called the Seattle Times to complain and they blame it on Apple.

If you live in the Seattle area you cannot know what is going on unless you read the Seattle Times. Big Stories, environment, arts, social justice and politics, economics and business news, State news, real estate, gardening...the best columnist-Danny Westneat...oh and sports! And photos of your backyard, crosswords, and even some pretty good chatter around town from Nicole Brodeur ... and excellent syndicated journalism from around the world.

I can't find the comics via the app!

💟 the Seattle Times app. Will be very useful while traveling. The ‘reading list’ feature helps me keep from having to deal with little scraps of paper (with useful info) that I would cut out of the paper 😉.

Too many ads placed so that they frequently fire off and you have to click back and start from the top of an article. Then it will happen again and again. Sometimes they will click just because you scrolled by them. Very frustrating. Then after an inadvertent click, you try to go back to the story to pick up where you left off, you get returned to the main menu and then you must navigate your way back and hope you don’t get clicked out a second or third time. Pain in the arse.

I like the brief leads knowing I will flesh out the story later in my online subscription. I encourage all to subscribe to you local paper.

Years of providing mobile content without a paywall -introducing one now is not going to be received very well. And the ads! You just degraded your user experience in a big way. Whomever is making strategic decisions at ST is making them from a spreadsheet and without users in mind. Big thumbs down.

I no longer live in Seattle so this app is a good way to see local news and sports. I think I pay ~$15/month which is too much since Seattle Times can’t replace my subscriptions to the NYTimes and Wall Street Journal. App is buggy. Difficult to find or surface relevant content compared to above mentioned iPhone apps. Between crummy app and that I rarely have time to get to my third newspaper probably means I will cancel soon. I want to support journalism and especially local journalism. But probably need some better sustainable solution than my $15/month of support.

A great home town paper.

In a word..... PAINFUL.

Maybe you'll get more subscribers if you start offering a $99.99 per year option along with the $9.99 per month option. That would be me!

Your left wing bias makes it hard to enjoy getting the news.

Ads are okay. Popping up full-screen video ads while browsing is jarring and bad kharma.

Seattle Times is an amazing publication

Love the app, but I wish there was a search bar (I couldn’t find one?) like on the website, to make it easier to look for articles!

...And, rapidly becoming the only game in town for local and regional coverage in newsprint.

Great app!! Awesome delivery of information in a timely fashion!

I've been reading the Seattle Times for many years and to have a app version is great so o can read it where ever I am. This keeps me up to date on what's happening her in Puget Sound and national news

Update, update...what a mess. How can Seattle’s only daily have such a lame app with puny content. I don’t think they even realize how bad it is. Should be ashamed! Update...app is better, but iPad content won't populate unless the screen is in portrait mode...crappy little annoying ads...still among the worst news apps. No exaggeration -- the slowest, buggiest, least responsive app I've ever owned. I think ST wants people to buy their newspaper, so it developed this junk to frustrate users. S...L...O............W. The content is marginal. Run from this junk!

3 stars

good app overall, but could we have the option to change the font of body text? would love to read a serif font instead of scrolling past inches of sans serif. also, all the images seem pretty low res to me.

In general, I like the ease of access to stories in this app. But sadly, in recent versions, ads often appear obscuring news content and can’t be dismissed. That’s a real failing. For example, a recent ad for a Chrysler Pacifica, took up 2/3 of the screen and the story I was reading underneath could not be read, because the ad could not be dismissed.

I always like to read David Brooks’ column; he is a thoughtful Republican, maybe the last. I do fault him for denial however. In looking at the shift of government to local initiative. Which is fine. But. Local efforts cannot address our overriding cancers: climate change, racism (as Brooks noted), wealth nondistribution, Fox News and religious terrorism. These devils are trying to k*** us. Ignoring them will not help. Frank Carsey Bremerton WA

Great local coverage and sports, app could use some work though.