USA TODAY: US & Breaking News 12+

Good, Solid App

For my purposes, the USA Today app is just fine. It provides the news and some amplifying coverage. That's all I expect. USA Today has long been known as the fast food outlet for news so one should calibrate expectations to match reality. If one seeks in-depth analysis and penetrating Op Ed pieces then one should look elsewhere as as the major papers (e.g., The Washington Post, The New York Times, LA Times, et al) or periodicals. This is not to denigrate USA Today but rather to properly align user expectations. I read USA Today every single day but augment that with other sources if I'm interested in more coverage of a news story. I like USA Today and the app and enjoy it, every single day. Well, designed, easy to navigate and informative at a certain level. I offer my compliments for doing precisely what I expect.

Update: all the above remains true. One irritating bug in most recent release re: crossword puzzle. The puzzle has a frequent behavior of “freezing” when only one letter remains for completion. No matter the location of the square, the board prohibits finishing by freezing before the last letter is entered. This behavior will not damage modern civilization but it is irritating. Otherwise, life is good.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for your feedback. iOS 13 changed how certain screens display with our app, which unintentionally adjusted the Crossword puzzle. We’re in the process of fixing this with an upcoming app release and appreciate your patience as we ensure it works as intended. Please keep an eye out for an app update that will note the fix in the “What’s New” text.

I read most of my news from USA’s platform

I like USA Today’s general news application on the Apple iPhone. USA Today has started to charge a monthly subscription fee for certain articles but not all, not yet at least. The thing is I wouldn’t mind paying a premium for their content as I’ve stated in previous reviews that I’ve read them for years and they have proven to me well worth it. However there s a negative, chiefly some of the articles which only subscribed paying members can obtain access to can be viewed for free on their very own platform through googling the articles headline. Secondly the monthly subscription price is simply to high. I would be willing to pay a couple dollars at most per month on a permanent basis. One more thing of note would be is perhaps you can view the article for free on google as opposed to the app is perhaps their intending on capitalizing on the convenience of going though the app. If this is the case even though their customers once realized you can obtain the article for free through Google will perhaps still feel like their getting cheated. Hope my review helps in some contributing factor.

Developer Response ,

We appreciate your feedback. We've made improvements to the latest app update to address this. Please reach out to us at USATODAYmobile@USATODAY.com so we can better investigate and resolve this issue. Thank you!

I wish I could rate 4 or 5 stars

I have enjoyed reading the news on the USA Today app for years. Recently the experience changed when some content was blocked and available only to subscribers. I’m sympathetic to the challenges faced by the print media and decided to go with a digital subscription especially since I like USA Today so much. That’s where the frustration started. Once I paid for my subscription naturally I expected to no longer have access blocked as only being available to subscribers but sure enough that is exactly what happened no matter what I did. Even after signing in. Since it was the weekend I only had the chat option for customer support and their suggestion was to call customer support on Monday. So I called customer support on Monday and they told me the same thing - can’t find my account, despite me having a receipt from Apple proving I paid for my digital subscription 48 hours. Their suggestion? Call back in 24 hours! Not sure how that’s going to help. The lack of helpful customer service (precipitated by the lack of a seamless process in 2021 to recognize when a reader has converted to a paid subscriber) holds me back from being able to rate higher than average. Please help!