The Guardian Editions

I have been a Guardian reader for nearly 40 years now. I have recently taken the plunge with a digital subscription, of which this app is an integral part. The print version is beyond my budget these days and the other free app has its limitations. I have also dabbled with previous versions of this app by turning subscriptions on and off via iTunes. Having read the comments of other reviewers, I ventured forward with some trepidation. In days gone by, I had become accustomed to picking up my copy of the Guardian at the railway station. I now find that it’s already waiting for me on my iPad when I snuggle up with my first cuppa of the day. I find the navigation around the app to be seamless and dip in and out of the things that are of interest to me with ease. The crossword has been done with the usual tussle with my vocabulary. The freedom from ads should not be underestimated too. Overall I am extremely satisfied and am pleased to be making a contribution for what I consider to be a quality product.

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The development team responsible for this rubbish should be sacked forthwith. The design is a massive backward step from the previous app which was a thing of beauty with logical flow that puts most paper apps to shame. This version has no flow (a constant process of go back to the beginning every time you want to do anything). It is bug ridden. This morning the childish progress bar is jumping backwards and forwards. Articles don’t appear when selected. Pictures in articles don’t appear. How can a paper famed for its design over the years have come to this. I have cancelled my subscription to the digital guardian. You are expecting your readers to pay while you conduct beta testing on them. Shame on you Guardian. ......and it gets worse. I’ve now seen this app on a smartphone. I still hate it but it makes more sense. Therefore you at the Guardian have thrown your entire iPad subscription base under a bus so people can read your ‘curated’ paper on a smartphone. You can consider my subscription cancellation permanent. Oh, and BTW the app on the phone confirms that the weather forecast is from London. What else would I want to know up here in Scotland!!

For some time I have been using The Guardian App on my iPad. It was great to be able to wake up to a downloaded digital paper. It was always then very disappointing to head to work on the tube in London using the mobile phone app with no pictures and intermittent access. I find the app really easy to use on my iPhone 11 Pro and it provides a version of the paper on my phone. I had been a beta tester for the app and the team made some real improvements which improved useability. Obviously some people don’t find it so pleasing ... but I think it is a brilliant way to read the paper when you are out and about. I still use the iPad version when at home and it is a joy to use. Yes it is less print focussed than the previous app - but it is a digital paper and takes advantage of the technology whilst maintaining the look and feel of The Guardian.

Most of us passively or actively resist change but I am trying to like the new design and it’s growing on me. It looks as if its design is smartphone centric as it sits better on the iPhone than the iPad (where items can be cut in half by the larger screen). That’s a pity as I use the iPad by default. Navigating around is OK, but while opening an article is intuitive, closing it is not. ...and for some strange reason the Guardian thinks Devons weather comes from Sheffield (so the iPhone tells me, where’s as on the iPad I would have been completely ignorant of this as there’s no indication of location). There ought to be an option to switch the weather symbols off, we’re not all obsessed with it, especially whether that’s 250 miles away! .....today’s weather (Brexit day) is from El Segundo, California! Weather now deleted and the design has grown on me. I like it, it’s really easy to navigate. Just need to sort out the clumsy iPad version now.

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I’ve been a subscriber to the daily version on my iPad for some time. The only positive thing I can say about the new version is that it’s now available for the iPhone. But it’s very poor and has lost a lot of the previous functionality. Biggest annoyances: navigation is hugely confusing. Can only access the previous 7 days’ editions - we used to be able to choose to keep a few weeks. I liked to save the weekend supplements and catch up with them at my leisure. That’s no longer an option. And when I updated the app on my iPad, I instantly lost the previous editions I’d been saving (and which I’d paid for!!) Also lost the ability to save content to Instapaper, which was the only way of keeping recipes etc. This digital version treats the newspaper as a short-term disposable product. I hate it, frankly, and am going to revert to the printed version, so I can choose how long to keep the supplements, and can tear out reviews and recipes. Old-fashioned, maybe, but the digital version isn't geared around my reading habits.