Journal-News

I am a digital subscriber. I’ve written to customer service twice in the last week, and I requested the comments be forwarded to the technical staff at Journal-News. I have an iPhone 12 mini and have a iPad Air 3, with iOS 26.5 on both. I usually read the Journal-News in the app and use Safari as my browser. I have been a subscriber for years. In the past, I have had very few issues. However, the app has so many problems now that I am considering cancelling my subscription. There was some initial problems when the Journal-News combined all of the news for many areas. The pages were haphazard and it was beginning to be difficult to find things. They weren’t logically where they should be. NAVIGATION DOES NOT EXIST Now the app has gone through major changes. Navigation is one of the first things to go. There’s always been—up until now—a way to find out where the “local” “national” “op eds” “business” and so-called “life” sections. I could find them because after I clicked on the paper with the correct date, I could choose to go page by page or click on that area and I got information about where the things above were. I could find the comics and the puzzles. Now the only indication of where the reader is is a tiny “A 2” or similar notations on the top of the paper. It is useless, though, because the only reason I can see anything is because I scrolled through one page after another. No big numbers inform the readers where to go for a particular thing. I don't even see a way to enter a page number—not that I would, since I do not know where anything is. And if you get bounced back to the beginning of the paper, you have to do the same thing again. The icons at the top (or bottom—they have moved) don’t help. I tried to cut an article but that didn’t work. I don’t know why those icons exist. The icon labeled “pages” might be a guide if you have a large magnifying glass-they are the whole pages in miniature form. An aside: I tried reading the paper on the website, but it is no better. It has the same problems the app has except that today I saw decent-sized page numbers at the top of the pages on the web, but not the app. SELECTION OF ARTICLES TO READ OR PRINT: I used to be able to click on an article and it appeared in its own space. It was in larger type, so it was easier to read. Now several things might happen, and the reader doesn't have any control over it. None of the things are helpful. First, if the article does show up in a window, it is virtually illegible. The type is smaller than the ePaper’s and it isn't as dark as the ePaper is. Second, sometimes the whole page goes into a window—nothing is isolated to read. In fact, when that happens, part of the page is darker that the rest. Finally, sometimes nothing happens at all. APP CHANGES ELIMINATE CHOICES IN WHAT TO READ: The changed app makes it impossible to be selective about what the reader sees. I only read parts of the paper. I do not want to be forced to look at every page. Now I don’t know which page is of interest to me. PUZZLE PROBLEMS: If you are someone who uses the ePaper and plans to work the puzzle(s), you are probably out of luck. I can’t isolate the puzzles and I don’t see a way to print them if I did. The problems with accessing the puzzles and other areas to get a better view or to print them started suddenly. Tomorrow is Sunday, but I doubt I will be able to access the Sunday puzzles. Yes, I know I can get separate apps for puzzles of different sorts; I have a number of them. But part of my enjoyment of having a newspaper is working the puzzles. COMICS: The panels don’t enlarge, or get isolated, so they are difficult to read if you have vision problems. I would like to address 2 things that I think the Journal-News has addressed. The big ad that was popping up on my screen in the app has been absent for a few days now. Also, I haven’t been forced to select my choice of privacy options every time I sign in. That gets old, and if you are a subscriber, the Journal-News should only have to ask that one time before it has a record of your choice. I’ve been patient with the Journal-News app for a long time while they were working on updating it. But if this is the best it can do, I will end my subscription. Maybe someone will wake up eventually and fix all the issues.

Trying to read the news is frustrating! There are ads at the top and bottom of my iPad screen. The ads take up half the screen now. Terrible!