inkl: News without paywalls

5 stars for the design of this app. 5 stars for the thought process and journalistic integrity. Beautiful interface and no annoying ads. However, it’s heavily UK focused, especially with sport. Every other story was on formula one racing which I have no interest and even though I kept hitting the thumbs down to see less content it still heavily focused on UK and needs more US focus in news and sport. I’ll come back later for a second look down the road but for now didn’t serve my purpose.

This is a really, really nice news aggregate, but I need to see a few more features before I pay $10/mo for it. It would be nice to have a time and date stamp on each article so we know, just by scrolling, if it’s today’s news, or yesterday’s news. It would also be nice to have a feature to ‘hide’ certain articles that we’ve read, or articles that we just don’t want to see, because of ‘personal ‘triggers’, or news that is ‘offensive’, or hits ‘too close to home’. It would also be nice to be able to save the “saved articles” offline so they can be read on the airplane, or without an internet connection. Many of the ‘on’ ‘off’ buttons on the settings tabs, that allow or disallow certain topics simply don’t work. I’ve turned off “our picks’, ‘business’, and ‘analysis’ tabs, and the tabs still don’t go away. The emailed morning edition’s articles redirect to the website, not to the app, so if I click on the link in the email to ‘read more’, I need to login to the website, because the link isn’t directed to my INKL app…. It would be nice to have the link from the email to open up in the app, so I don’t need to sign in every morning to read the article. I’ll easily pay $$$ for a great news app with more features, but right now, the price is just a little too steep without the additional features that I need in a news aggregate. I'd easily pay $5 /mo for INKL as it is, but yeah…. $10/mo right now is just a little pricey, for the limited features and limited functionalities. My 7 day trial expired today.. I really, really wanted to subscribe, but the price is just too steep for the limited features, so I won’t be able to join right now, but I’ll check back often, and when more features become available, I’ll definitely look forward to becoming a paying customer. ❤️

I’ll be honest here, I almost didn’t give this app a try bc I simply just can’t afford the $10/month subscription fee, but I’m so so happy I decided to take advantage of the free trial bc this is the news app of my DREAMS. I downloaded it this morning thinking I’d give it a quick browse while I was drinking my coffee and then cancel my free trial. Well, my “quick browse” ended up being an intense 6 hour long immersion. 6 HOURS! I’m blown away by the quality and sheer volume of articles available, and every article I read was so edifying. I cannot recommend this enough: the UI is intuitive and aesthetically satisfying, the categories are simple, accurate, and well organized, the content is credible, unbiased, and factual, and it is somehow the perfect app for every type of reader, from the news junkie to the casual browser. I feel like I’ve learned more in the last 6 hours than I have watching the news every day for the last 6 years. The only - and I mean ONLY- negative for me is the subscription price. I think the price is more than fair, but it’s just not something I can afford after being impacted by covid. To the developers: phenomenal job! Y’all have created something beautiful and I can’t wait until I’m able to support what you’re doing w/a subscription.