Decent I suppose – National Geographic Review

I never had the previous nat geo app, so I can’t compare that like others have. But this does seem like a website more than a magazine extension. There’s a lot of great content to read and watch, but what’s quite bothersome is that every headline seems like it’s clickbait “First time a hippo is caught on camera doing ...” or “wolves caught on camera for the first time ever eating ...” and even “Most widespread wildlife crime raid ever sweeps across ...” Every headline is like this and there’s no good reason for it. First, your PAYING customers are already here; no need to force us to click every article just to read the headline. Second, there’s more than enough “white space” around the headline that is cutoff. And if there truly isn’t enough space because of Nat Geo’s “artistic layout,” then shorten the headline. Really, there’s no need for the ellipses and clickbait—this isn’t Facebook. Another issue the magazine portion itself. Just seems lazily done. I remember when apple first introduced magazines in the newsstand app. It was such a fun experience to have the physical magazine look in a digital experience and with clickable links to look up places, see related articles, expand photos, and just a more interactive experience. The digital versions of magazines truly were an extension of the print version. With this app, it just seems like they went the way of a basic website. Click a story, read story, see a couple photos about the story, go back to the “magazine” content page and repeat. There’s no real interaction or experience. It just is. Worth a subscription? I guess. I got mine for $10 by listening to the new Nat Geo podcast Overheard. For the normal $55 price? Absolutely not. Not for the digital subscription at least. Hope they listen to their customers. It’s really unfortunate that they’ve lost long time customers just because they’re being stubborn about maintaining a different direction for the app. Stick with what works and what people like. All the best
Review by jbram63 on National Geographic.