The Wall Street Journal. News vs The Economist

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

1. [R6] The Wall Street Journal. News 3/5 · US no comments: I don’t get why this app doesn’t let you leave comments, only on the website. It’s 2024, how hard can it be to add such a basic feature to the app?
2. [R18] The Wall Street Journal. News 3/5 · US Issues with app: Newspaper is great, but the app is a battery killer and overheats the phone. Also, reader comments cannot be read, not can you contribute
3. [R65] The Economist 5/5 · US Addition of CarPlay takes this to the next level: So happy to see CarPlay support added to the app. I love the podcasts, but this will help me get thru more of the articles. Please add playback speed controls. 1x is just too slow for me and there are a lot of articles I’d like to get to each week.
4. [R67] The Economist 1/5 · US Awful. Bring back the old app: Will sometimes (but inexplicably not all the time) refuse to play downloaded articles when not connected to the internet. I listen to articles while hiking in areas that don’t have cell reception so this is a deal breaker for me. Was not a problem with the old app.
5. [R7] The Wall Street Journal. News 2/5 · US SLOW: This app just keeps hanging up. I don’t know if they’re doing it intentionally to force you to look at ads, but I can’t get through a single article without it hanging up. Updates seem to make no difference, and I’m on fiber, so not a bandwidth issue.
6. [R33] The Wall Street Journal. News 3/5 · US Buggy, Ad-filled mess: The user experience and navigation have gone backwards over the past year. The issue is that there are now so many interspersed and slow loading ad blocks in each digital article that the app freezes, and causes my iPhone to overheat. True even on my 1 Gig wifi link. We get it - news is a business that requires ad revenue, but not at the expense of degrading the product.
7. [R61] The Economist 1/5 · US Clunk and Hard to use: The app continues to be an abomination, with what should be “basic” features missing. Downloaded issues continue to “spin”; briefly leaving the app results in a long start up load and back to the main page, instead of continuing where left off in the weekly edition. Weekly edition articles have too many links. the previous version of the app was simple, clean, and easy to us
8. [R93] The Economist 3/5 · US Functionality lacking: As a reader/subscriber for over 30 years, I am disappointed and dismayed by the lack of functionality of this Economist app, and the tech generally. If I am reading an article on my iPad in the app and I want to check something else before finishing the article and navigate away, when I return, I’m seeing the home page and I have to search for the article I was reading. Not
9. [R40] The Wall Street Journal. News 1/5 · US Broken: App won’t load. VPN not the issue. Web version only option until this is fixed.
10. [R52] The Wall Street Journal. News 1/5 · US APP needs serious work: Content top notch, but the app is serious bad. 1. When I open an article, even if the content has been downloaded before, without internet connection it still refuses to load. This is terrible - internet connectivity should not affect article viewing for the articles that were already downloaded. 2. Offline mode is buggy. Today is May 10, 2026. When I am on a subway, th
11. [R71] The Economist 4/5 · US Used to be great: Used to be great but now so buggy it won’t even open. Hope they get it fixed soon,
12. [R105] The Economist 3/5 · US Great reporting…unstable app experience: Absolutely love the economist, but every 6 months or so something breaks in the app in the most absurd way. You should be able to listen to articles, then suddenly that feature stops working.
13. [R28] The Wall Street Journal. News 1/5 · US WSJ App now just a con game: News content is no longer accessible via the iPhone app. Regardless of an active subscription, every attempt to read beyond the headlines will be met with a screen demanding the purchase of an additional $39 monthly subscription. There are ample legitimate news options available via iTunes apps. If you truly need to read WSJ, try a print subscription.
14. [R34] The Wall Street Journal. News 1/5 · US Poly market ads: Get rid of them. I pay for a subscription, I don’t need to see gambling ads here as well
15. [R74] The Economist 4/5 · US Worth the $$: This is news and insight worth paying for
16. [R104] The Economist 5/5 · US One of my five most valued sources of global news and analysis: I rarely regret clicking through a link to see what The Economist has to say - time well spent. Solid research, superior writing.
17. [R10] The Wall Street Journal. News 1/5 · US Can’t login with Sign In With Apple: I’ll change this rating once this is fixed, but I’ve subscribed to the app but can’t login with Sign In With Apple! I’ve tried over and over on multiple devices. It takes me to the Safari browser, I select my account, it signs in and stays on a blank page. It doesn’t take me back to the app, and the app stays signed out. I’m extremely frustrated with this!
18. [R46] The Wall Street Journal. News 1/5 · US Bait and switch: Beware. If you click on article and can’t access and subscribe, it may charge you for a service that does not include the article or only gives a Barron’s online subscription. Do not buy anything through this app. Customer service does not care and will ignore the issue.
19. [R88] The Economist 2/5 · US Poor Service: I’m unable to get somebody at The Economist to help me transfer my expired corporate group subscription from a prior employer to a personal account, so unfortunately I’m unable to pay for and access their wonderful coverage.
20. [R112] The Economist 1/5 · US Needs lots of improvements: Even if I’ve downloaded an issue, the app still needs Internet access. If I download issues and then go on an airplane and reopen the app, it still needs Internet access to show any articles or play any audio, defeating the entire purpose of downloading the issue for offline access. The reason appears to be a combination of bad requirements, coding, and testing. It is