Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review
AP Mobile for iPhone still a dog for many
The AP Mobile app from the Associated Press was much admired when the iPhone first came out. It was quick and reliable, and at the time, it was one of the few dedicated news apps. Now, after a few revisions and updates which didn't go so well, AP Mobile is still a popular download, but for many, that's where the popularity ends. The newest version, released in June, supports 'push' updates, so even if you are not in the app you get an alert with breaking news updates. It seems to work well, although sometimes I would quibble with the editorial choices. It can be turned off, but it would be better if it could be customized -- only domestic news, or only sports bulletins, etc. By comparison, the Twitter-based Breaking News On newswire now also offers a BNO iPhone app that supports push notifications and some advanced filtering capability; it's $1.99 + $0.99/month to maintain the full filtering toolset.
My main complaints about the AP app are still there. It remains buggy, which often manifests itself in crashes or slowness. One problem is that when you first bring it up, the last stories it loaded are seen on screen. You might want to look at one and then the update takes place, snatching the story away from you into news heaven. Yes, you could probably scroll down to find it, but it is a disconcerting way for an app to work.
The worst problem is the use of screen real estate. AP is now selling ads on the app. Then they have a large front page panel with links to photos and videos. Those interface elements take about 40% of the screen space. Even when you do select a story, it often has a picture and ad associated with it, taking up about half the screen.
It's just not reader friendly to do it that way. How about giving me an option to see or not see the pictures? How about skipping the star symbols that accompany each story -- what the heck are those for anyway? Are news stories evolving into some kind of poll now where we can rate them? AP has taken great pains to provide a way for me to rate stories, but frankly I can't see the point. If I'm interested in a story, I'll read it. If I'm not, I'll skip it. Why do I care what other people thought of the story? Absent any specific comments, which aren't allowed, the ratings make no sense.
In some ways, AP seems to have lost their way with this app. It's been out in this latest version for a couple of months, and the app store ratings are dismal. I love news, and I love reading the news. Why has the AP made it so difficult to do just that?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Galley said 10:11PM on 8-08-2009
Meanwhile the New York Times app keeps getting better.
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Robert Ameeti said 10:11PM on 8-08-2009
Yep, it was great, but it has degraded in value.
When they cross post the same story in multiple categories, it does not mark or dim the story in the 2nd category. I think it should allow me to not have to scroll through stories that it knows that I've already read. They do dim the story headline sometimes, but you still have to scroll through it rather than seeing that nothing is new.
It needs a lot of help and it wouldn't be all that much work to make it great again but they don't seem to be listening or caring.
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Steve said 6:15PM on 8-09-2009
I've set it to display 5 stories per front page category, but it's still displaying two. And in the first two categories, they're duplicates. Duplicate removal should be an option.
Gromwalh said 10:44PM on 8-08-2009
News reading is one of the top 5 uses I have for my iPhone, and AP used to be my favorite app for that. It has since been replaced by Fluent. AP is just SO FRELLING SLOW to load. If they could make it even half as zippy at Fluent I'd probably start using it again.
Some of the other news apps aren't bad, but personally I like the ones that let me see news from multiple sources (or in the case of AP, the source for multiple sources). Fluent gives you stories from a wide spectrum of outlets in one app.
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Justin said 10:46PM on 8-08-2009
I couldn't agree more. The initial AP News app was great. I have even deleted it from my iPhone. I was using the NY Times app, but that's still pretty buggy as well.
I've settled (for now) on the MSNBC news app. It's snappy, quick, lets you see "all news" or particular sections of news (US, Politics, World, Tech, etc.) and the only ad that appears is a Best Buy one every once in a while on the scrollable list.
Here's the link (or search for msnbc): http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=319740707&mt=8
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Chroma said 11:29PM on 8-08-2009
I still refuse to upgrade from 2.X. I only want an app for news. I don't need all that extra crap like weather, etc...
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Cheese Rations said 11:12PM on 8-08-2009
AP's news app is an app that has fantastic potential. Their latest release is a great proof of concept for push notifications, but the interface itself is extremely laggy and it takes forever for the initial batch of stories to load. I can literally have USA Today's app run, updated, and finish reading stories before AP's app has even downloaded the initial batch of stories.
I'd suggest that everyone that uses the app or would like to makes use of the feature included in it to send a message to their support team to report the slowness and ask that it be fixed. You can submit them a support request by clicking 'More', then 'Settings', then 'Support'.
Their support is very responsive and says that they're going to pass it on to their developers, so let's hope that happens. You should get a reply within a day or so and it also includes a phone number (877-836-9477) that I haven't called yet, but may consider doing.
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Kleinias said 11:15PM on 8-08-2009
I'm in agreement with pretty much all the prior posters. The AP application used to be my go-to app for breaking news. At the time, it was better than the NYTimes app and the Wall Street Journal app didn't exist yet. Now, the AP News' design is so poor that makes it a chore to get to the breaking news and wade past all the other stuff. I think that both the NYTimes app & the WSJ app have good content and are quite usable.
It's noteworthy to point out that while the NY Times' app started out horribly and eventually got significantly better, the AP News app started out quite well and got significantly worse. Really, if they would have just left the AP app the way it was, it would have still held up quite well.
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Beau said 11:18PM on 8-08-2009
Living in Australia, AP's push notifications weren't much use to me for starters. Since downloading BNO, at least the notifications are a tad more useful for me.
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seannjohnn said 11:34PM on 8-08-2009
USA Today is still my favorite news app. Its clean and loads up really fast. Its simple for my news needs.
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macduke said 1:15AM on 8-09-2009
I've never gotten a push notification on my 3GS from this app. All others work fine. I've messed around with reinstalling it, changing the settings a dozen times. Nothing works. What's interesting is that any time I put my simcard into my old 3g I would immediately get a push from AP. No delay. Sim card in, push notification out.
I installed 3.0 the day it came out and had AP on there working fine. Then I bought my 3GS two days later when it came out and it never worked. I've since formatted and sold my 3g so I can't test anymore. Maybe I should pop the sim into my 1st gen iPhone and try it on there? Anyone know what the problem could be?
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sharris said 5:21AM on 8-09-2009
Do you live in America? I live in the UK - unless you set your location in the app's preferences top America you will not receive Push Notifications.
You can change it to America even if you don't live there, and you should receive notifications, but they are almost always irrelevant to the rest of the world, mainly talking about US politics...
dagamer43 said 1:48AM on 8-09-2009
In general, I think the AP News app is just a case of bad app design. They need to go back to the drawing board and really think what makes an app "great".
Also, in general, developers need to realize that tiny touch targets are incredibly annoying when designing custom interfaces. An easy example of this is Facebook 2.0 for the iPhone. Besides the fact that the home page is very cluttered, it hides a LOT of options because of a tiny scrolling target at the top for different options. Facebook 3.0 for iPhone definitely is a step in the right direction UI-wise. Now I'm not saying that every developer needs to make a custom UI to succeed, but they need to learn what UI elements are properly used for and adapt their content to fit that form.
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Radon said 4:57AM on 8-09-2009
The Breaking News On app is junk. The Twitter site sucks too. Don't give Michael von Poppel any face time -- he's a tool.
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hindlist said 10:19AM on 8-09-2009
I agree with the all content of this article.
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Thomas said 10:42AM on 8-09-2009
Of course the application will manage to imbed ads; how else can AP make money? these apps are all about earning revenue. Eventually you will see half of the screen devoted to ads and the rest to the news. If they follow the way their other web sites go, when you click on a photo or video you'll first get a 30 second spot of advertising. Click on a story about cars, and first you have to watch 30 second advert for, what else, a new car. This will be funny when the story is about a drunk driver who drove a xxx model, and the advert is for the same car!
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Nikax said 12:21PM on 8-09-2009
the worst problem is that it delivers AP news, which is sophomoric. And yes, the NY TImes app gets better. There's also a good BBC reader (BBCReader). So who needs the AP?
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TheCastro said 2:39PM on 8-09-2009
I actually emailed the AP apps comment section and one of the VPs emailed me pretty quickly. They're working on a way to customize the updates. I complained because I don't really care about celebrity news.
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Wheat Williams said 3:22PM on 8-09-2009
My problem with the AP Mobile app is the content. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, a huge metro area with lots of news. However, under the "Local News" tab, AP Mobile gives me dozens of stories on lottery winners across the Southeast, and dozens of college and professional sports articles from across the Southeast. Sprinkled in there are a tiny number of stories that deliver actual news coming from Atlanta (civics, government, law enforcement, business, education and other topics).
I have absolutely no interest in lottery winners or sports, but there is no way for me to apply any filtering or indicate my preference. AP Mobile's idea of "local news" is very much not what I want to read.
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Josh Wardell said 4:54PM on 8-09-2009
I use APMobile for its useful breaking news notifications (which seem to be half important news and half celebrity death news). But a major problem is, if you do not read the message before you unlock your iphone's screen, there is no way to read it again. The app shows a 1 on its icon to signal the unread message, but no way to see it when you open it.
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