The Economist - News, Podcasts 12+

I believe the periodical covers a mix of the relevant. I had some issues with the audio for a while. The speed of delivery went up making the audio stressful. Short while back it became alright. I enjoy the experience very much. Thank you very much

18th June 2022
The economist is a valuable source of information on all aspects of world affairs not just the economy. The coverage of these macro Geo Political and cultural subjects makes it interesting. Besides these are often lead indicators of times ahead.

Online click-farming and political polarization has left most news sources a cortisol-fueling mess. The Economist has managed to hold out through this, with them still being a weekly publication, while remaining relatively non-partisan. They have encouraged me to pick up reading the news again, since I abandoned it in 2017. The mobile app is also one of the best and most intuitive I've found among other news apps. I like the native-feeling UI, and the audio articles is the cherry on top.

However, seeing ads on something I pay for looks quite bad in this age. The first thing I look for in an app is a payment method to get rid of the ads, and I am disappointed I can't get do that here. Still worse is the fact that the ads seem to be provided by a third-party, with all the user-tracking and profiling that that entails. But the Economist seems to be set in their ways, and I had to install an ad-blocker on my phone because of this app.

I absolutely love this app, in particular the morning briefing (personally preferred it being called espresso briefing).
I do have a few things I would suggest adding to this app considering how the legacy app always asks to switch over to this one. Having the 15 second fast forward/rewind and little excerpts about every article right under the headline (without actually opening the article) in the weekly edition is something very useful in the legacy app. These two little features are incredibly useful in my opinion. I can prioritise which article I would want to listen to first by reading the excerpt, and quickly rewind in case I miss something, instead of having to use the slider or open the article altogether. I don’t mean to imply that the headlines given for each are not good, they are great. It’s just nice to have a sneak peek of what the article is about.