News24: Breaking News. First

Recently deleted this app after using it for many, many years. It has lost its integrity through its approach to advertising. I have no issue with ads on a free app. I understand why they are there. But the way this app displays them is dishonest. They ensure that the ad is big enough to fill the entire screen while scrolling down, and so sensitive that the slightest touch while scrolling will take you away from the app to the ad. This is invasive. If I want to follow the ad, I will click it. But don’t force me to the ad site by making it impossible to scroll past the add and then unavoidable to not have it follow the link while scrolling. This ploy is clearly designed to get the number of “clicks” up to generate more revenue by showing advertisers the statistics...but it is artificial, dishonest, and abusive to the audience who wants to read the articles. News24, please get your integrity back! You built a great brand but you are now selling out.

The previous version of this app was awesome. It adjusted itself to the layout of your phone, did not crash every 3rd or 4th attempt to open, adverts were more evenly spaced and not repeated several times. At the moment there is this annoying black screen that pops up every now and then depending on where you scroll in the article, which refuses to close and forces you to hard close the app and reopen it. If you have a zoomed screen it does not adjust itself and words are cut off. Whoever designed this app did a crappy job in testing it before it was launched. Alas it seems this is an industry wide problem as the app developers are too lazy to ensure their work is perfect before they launch it into the market. Bring back the old app. At least one was able to read the news without having to reopen every other time. This review pertains to the iOS version of the app.

I am fully aware that online news media organisations need to advertise in order to be able to generate revenue. I think everyone can accept that this is a trade off and if you want to opt out of advertising, one should pay a nominal fee. However, this app is becoming so plagued with adverts that it’s gradually becoming unusable. This morning I had three full pop up adverts for Standard Bank in under 10 minutes and when loading an article, all of the text constantly shifts around as the ads load. I’m no expert on the industry, but I know that if this continues I’ll probably just delete and move on with my life. Surely over advertising to the point where an app is unusable is more detrimental to revenue growth than reasonable advertising?

I’ve used New24 for over 10 years and I may be forced to find another app as it has become insufferable with ads. It is less the quantity of ads, albeit high, that bothers me. It is that what constitutes a click on an ad is quite bizarre and unlike anything I’ve seen before. If you scroll past an ad but your finger touches the add, even in the action of scrolling and not clicking, the ad opens. I can hardly scroll down the news feed without an add opening! It is ridiculous. It should only open if I click on it.

On EVERY report I open to read, a video ad starts playing loudly with no warning or permission granted or play button selected. The mute option is clearly activated but this seems of little use as sound plays with the ad. I have now read about 15 reports and each one is met with the same video ad playing as the report opens. The same ad 15 times over. Enough to make me uninstall and find a news alternative app more sensitive to the readers needs as News24 has clearly moved toward ad based app designs.