App Profile: WSAZ News

Dxytnb

Rating: 3/5

The App is okay when I open it, but I just turned off Notifications because they are always teasers to get me to open app. I understand more clicks mean more advertising money for the station, but I hate going to the app to find out the details when they say something like “teacher arrested in our area”, or “local road closed due to accident”. The other news apps post enough information to know if the news effects me, so I don’t waste time finding out the wreck or the teacher were in another state, and don’t really interest me at all. So, with Notifications turned off, I probably won’t be opening this app much anymore.

SeriouslyThisIsMyNickname

Rating: 1/5

… but the majority of the time? I’m waiting for things to load. Any notification I get that is worth clicking on, I never get the page to show anything. It just sits with the WSAZ banner up top and that’s it. Nothing else, and I’ve let the page sit for 10mins and it still never load. It’s SO slow when you are using wifi only, but for some reason, it will load fast when in service. Considering how a large portion of viewers for WSAZ are in rural areas without cell coverage, we’re relying on wifi to use the mobile app … but what is the point when the app doesn’t even bother loading? Even loading the website on a phone’s browser is incredibly slow. I’ve seen dial-up load pages faster than whatever this company is using to host their site and app. This has been a major issue with the app for about a year now, and only recently, it has gotten increasingly worse with trying to get it to load. Users shouldn’t have to be in cell service just to access the features of the app properly when wifi is perfectly viable. Also, do better with ads. The predatory nature of the types of ads associated with WSAZ’s app is honestly shameful.

6404 9029 43

Rating: 3/5

I don’t notice any intrusive ads anymore - my only complaint is that 90% of the time when I click on a new notification, the story hasn’t been released on the app yet. For example: a notification “2 break ins in one day in Huntington WV” will pop up on my phone up to 20 minutes before the content is on the app, and I’ll get a message saying “there is no associated story blah blah blah” Please fix this. I shouldn’t have to wait just to read a story. Either make the content appear sooner or don’t give people a notification until it’s ACTUALLY on the site/app.