Recently another button failed on my Stream. It’s the button that changes from offline to online bookshelves and turns airplane mode off and on, so the Stream can no longer do online functions. I was on the offline bookshelf when it failed.
I am subscribed to a few papers on a service called NFB Newsline. I did this when I lived in the states. I don’t think this service is available outside the states. So, to keep reading those few papers I downloaded the NFB Newsline app on my iPhone.
This app is extremely clunky! Not only was it very hard to get it to recognize my location, as it wanted to give me relevant content and I couldn’t go past it, it was also very hard to find the log-in button once I entered my credentials.
After that, finding the papers I was already subscribed to was daunting. They didn’t show up in the national papers section, so I had to go to all publications and find them that way. I was given an add to favorites option, but when I did that, which I shouldn’t even have had to do, there’s no way to access those favorites. It was no problem ever on the Stream to access them. They should’ve already been there on the iPhone app.
The clunky app comes with KNFB Reader basic, and they could’ve left that out entirely as I have much better tools available. They should concentrate on making the NFB Newsline portion much better, much easier to use, and give access to one’s favorites.
Another thing that makes this app so clunky is that when a section of a given paper is double tapped, it sometimes takes ages for that section to load. This doesn’t seem to depend on how many articles that section has, so a section with 26 articles can load quickly, whereas a section with 1 or 2 can hang the app up indefinitely. The reverse can also be the case.
In short, folks, I truly hope I can someday buy the Orbit Player, and get away from this cursed, clunky NFB Newsline app! In my research for alternative products that do what the Stream does, the Orbit Player stands out as the only other viable option I have.
The NFB Newsline app has a 4.5 stars rating. Why this is I’ll never know. I give it -10 stars.