SmartNews: News That Matters
Get access to quality news all in one place.
Total ratings
3.73
(Rating count:
682,753)Review summary
These summaries are automatically generated weekly using AI based on recent user reviews.
Google Play Store does not verify user reviews, so some user reviews may be inaccurate,
spammy, or outdated. Pros
- Provides a variety of news topics
- Has potential for a good layout and format
- Compiles news from multiple sources across the political spectrum
Cons
- Frequent crashes and glitches
- Overwhelming number of intrusive ads
- Poor article loading and continuity issues
Most mentioned
- Crashes and app instability
- Excessive ads, including autoplaying video ads
- Changes to the news feed algorithm leading to unwanted content
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User reviews
Recent rating average:
1.80
All time rating average:
3.73
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| Date | Author | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-11-25 |  | | I used to love this app. It was always the first app I'd open on my phone for the better part of 2 years...I'd spend hours on it. It updated a month ago completely ruined it for me. I used to enjoy it because the news feed was completely random. I would go from politics to sports to random ebaums world stuff to brain teasers etc. The app now has all the news categorized and I don't get any of the fun random stuff I used to get... It sucks. I hardly look at it anymore. So very disappointed!!! |
| 2024-11-21 |  | | It's a broken app. Used to work alright, but now it stops loading stories after just a story or two. And every time they do repair work, just seems to make things worse. Basically unusable at this point. Time to switch news apps. Also crashes multiple times per day... |
| 2024-11-20 |  | | Was originally very useful. Then it started interrupting with ads that I couldn't stop, including very annoying audio that couldn't be killed unless the app was shut down. Many months later...the app continues to irritate with inexplicably reverting back to "rebooting " an article while being read, or completely bouncing out of the app. In either case, the continuity of reading an article is lost. Very poor programming after all this time. Tired of it. Currently looking for an alternate. |
| 2024-11-18 |  | | Full of clickbait garbage and highly biased sources. There's no way to filter out the junk, you can select "less from Site X" but it doesn't do anything. I tried to reduce some of the well know clickbait junk sites, but they still make up over half my feed while the AP, a site I want more of, is nowhere to be seen (even in my "following" section). Absolute trash of an app - uninstalling after three months of trying to dial it in. |
| 2024-11-18 |  | | HOW DOES THIS APP GET WORSE WITH EVERY UPDATE!? There's a new update at least once a week. Still, nothing improves. Articles might open after 30 seconds, if at all. Constantly crashes. Auto-start video ads that can't be muted unless you close the app. All external links, like YT, IG, and TT videos open in the SmartNews app, so none of the controls work correctly. Even an Amazon ad will open the Amazon app inside of SN. WHY? It's not useable. Also, way too much spam! I'm switching to Google News. |
| 2024-11-12 |  | | Crashes and heats up my phone! As I use the app, it occasionally crashes, interrupting my read and when it doesn't my phone gets way too hot. If it crashes while I'm reading I can just go to previously read, but if I find an article and don't click it in time, I sometimes lose the article after the crash. This can get annoying. I have updated, and reinstalled multiple times. I'm using a Galaxy S21. Update: 11-12-24 The app still lags, glitches, and crashes. Annoying. |
| 2024-11-11 |  | | UPDATE 2: Unfortunately it is still awful. Nothing ever works or loads stories. UPDATE 1: Constantly crashes!!!!! App updated and restarted while I was using it just now. Absolutely nothing loads now. It used to be my favorite and only news app. Then it started to freeze, unending ads, stories don't load, articles don't scroll, articles incomplete or blank, ads start audio in the middle of an article, and the list goes on. |
| 2024-11-09 |  | | The last few updates, the scrolling on articles is glitchy. Keeps freezing up or getting stuck. Once that starts, then articles won't load. Then the app will crash and restart. After clicking on a few articles, the cycle starts again. I have a Samsung Galaxy S24+. Are you aware of the issue? It's been happening for the past month. |
| 2024-11-08 |  | | Items or subjects you CLEARLY mark as 'not interested' fills up your feeds, and gets worse each time you open. Tried marking 'not interested' on articles and subject for MONTHS, thinking that the built-in AI or data collected would imorove my feeds, but no, it just became worse. Those that you are 'interested' in almost never comes out in the feeds because of this. Will change to another news aggregator if I find a better one to lessen my frustrations. |
| 2024-11-07 |  | | Still glitchy. Crashes a lot. Refreshes on it's own, even when you are in the middle of scrolling and it takes you back up to the beginning. Commercials volume sometimes plays on it's own, so if you are listening to music while you read, good luck getting music to stay on. Despite all this, it still has the best format and has the potential to be the best news app. Can you fix all these things that are ongoing issues or sprung up in the face of the lastest update?? |
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