The Independent

I have used the online Independent for many years, in fact have subscribed since it went online. I had always recommended it to others as the way an online paper should be produced. Sadly I can no longer say that. Since the last update (I write in April 2025) I have been unable to find the correspondence page, and find the whole format frankly unusable. There used to be a single page with a thumbnail of each article by section which was very easy to navigate. Now, it appears I have to scroll endlessly through articles, some of which seem out of date, without any sort of overview of the contents. I am not in the slightest interested in videos or audio. If I wanted those there are many other places online. The new online Independent has become an utter shambles! I used to be a (modest) contributor to the letters page, but I can no longer find the letters page so have stopped trying. Were it not that my wife has retained the previous version of the app and continues to use it. I would have cancelled my subscription. That time may well yet come.

I signed up to a a three month trial early winter and didn’t renew as the user experience such as app layout, caching and refresh is terrible. I had an offer to renew for another three months and I’m still in that three months. During that time the user experience has declined further. The layout in the app is just dreadful. If I view from my laptop browser I can select sub-headings and view articles. It seems as though the app is the lite version with minimal content. The biggest issue is refreshing of content. My mobile is stuck on articles from five days ago and will not refresh. iPad simply won’t load anything, just blank. The standard of journalism is excellent hence 3 stars but the app is awful. In a time when survival of a news outlet depends on digital perhaps the best newspaper in the UK is heading in the wrong direction. Either there is not sufficient investment or the wrong team are running the show. I subscribe to the Guardian too and though I’ve tired of their click bait reporting the digital experience is amazing. Please sort it out. The UK without a decent readership of The Independent will be a poorer place.

I’m trying out the Independent Minds app alongside my current go to news apps - the Guardian and the Times. I’ve been finding the new Guardian design rather cluttered and not particularly easy to scan so was hoping the Independent might provide a more succinct and less busy presentation. I’m pleased to say it does and there is much to like in this app. It is quick and easy to scan and the font size choices are good. The app also works well on both iPhone and iPad, not necessarily a given as some newspapers tend to reserve iPad apps for their most premium subscriptions. The quality of journalism is good and I’m finding plenty of interesting and varied news and features. The app does lack a certain maturity at this stage of its development, for example saved articles don’t sync across apps, so you end up with a separate collection of articles on iPhone and iPad. Also, there is very little customisation in adding topic areas, something the Guardian app in particular excels at. However, the Independent app is just very likeable and a pleasure to use in the main. At this point in my trial I’m still uncertain of whether I will continue with a paid subscription or not. In effect what you are paying for is an app free experience but you can get that by going to the website with a content blocker on. The added extras of an Independent Minds subscription are as yet no match for what you get, for example, with the Times or Telegraph, which feature a lot more offers and discounts. However having paid for newspaper subscriptions and then been inundated with ads (stand up the Telegraph), I appreciate the ethos of what the Independent is trying to do here, so may well give it my support for a year and see how the team develop the app over the coming months.