We analyzed 27 negative reviews from the top 5 News Reader apps on the App Store. Here's what users hate most.
Ranked by frequency — how often each complaint appears in negative reviews.
22% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"The iPad never updates the feeds. They have a tech help article that basically just blames apple for the problem. I've never had an app have synchi"
"I use this app on my Mac and on my iPhone, and they work well. However, it doesn't work on the iPad."
15% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"To make sure I do not miss important notifactions the app had to support push notifications. Sadly this does not work at all"
"For some reason, I only get rss notifications on this app if I open the app"
11% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"I want to love this app, but the swipe is backwards. Every other app I use (Mail, Reeder, Gmail, Microsoft To Do, Fantasical, hell even Messages) you swipe from right to left"
"the ability to customize the swipe gestures would go a long way to permanently converting me"
11% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"An app whose sole purpose is reading text should have font configuration options. Size separate from the system size would be a start"
"the tiny thing that's killing me is the pure white text in dark mode (with a very dark background). Most app don't-I think- use pure white and here the contrast is just too high to be readable for me"
7% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"Many times you cant set a batch of messages as read (all,up,down) and the app crashes"
"this app is useless, it won't pull any feeds at all"
15% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"Bad usability. Large company icons block out useful text, clipping content to show branding"
"Been using the app for a while but recent unnecessary UI changes are ruining the experience"
Design and usability issues driving negative reviews.
App automatically accesses clipboard outside of expected contexts like adding feeds, creating privacy concerns
"Just started using app and noticed it is automatically accessing clipboard. Not ok"
Users struggle to understand where feeds end up when added and how to organize them properly
"I'm not RSS savvy but I do know how to find a web address and share a link into this app - problem is, where does it end up? Apparently not where it defaults to anyway"
Critical features like notifications are difficult to discover in the UI
"It doesn't notify you when a new item is found. You have to search it out manually. Edit: nevermind I found it buried in an info menu. Needs to be redesigned"
Issues with duplicate feed detection and inability to delete specific feeds
"Tried to add NPR Technology feed, and got an error that the feed was already subscribed. Clearly an error"
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