MS NOW vs SmartNews

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. [R1] MS NOW 2/5 · US No live shows!: I recently dropped my streaming service, so msnbc went away. I thought that would be ok, because I new this app existed. So, I downloaded it and all I can find is snippets of shows! I can’t watch a full show the day after it was live, I can watch a half hour of an hour long show the next day, but then it switches to a different show! Not even close to what I thought it would be!
2. [R28] MS NOW 3/5 · US Ok: As a shorts informational app it’s ok. I’d rather pay for a full app with full stories than just pieces of interviews, hearing moments. This doesn’t allow enough information to be very valuable and I am a true fan of MS but, I need more from the app.
3. [R62] SmartNews 5/5 · US Smart News Articles: Smart News stories are very interesting and informative.
4. [R68] SmartNews 5/5 · US Easy Layout: I enjoy the content that I chose to receive and the way it’s presented. On other platforms I used previously it was a constant issue getting back to the main page. I find the articles have the full story and not just snippets. I’m really happy to have found this unbiased source.
5. [R10] MS NOW 1/5 · US used to work fine…now, not so much!: This app used to work fine on my roku, but about a week ago it started giving error message after a few minutes of streaming ! Did you update something that created the glitch? I suppose I will have to subscribe to it on youtube and catch clips! This is not acceptable! 🥵
6. [R39] MS NOW 1/5 · US Love the channel, the app is a glitch fest!: It’s so frustrating to try to tune in to a program and just not be able to get there! The endless buffering is maddening. And then I find myself signed out, and unable to sign back in. It just freezes up. Terrible.
7. [R71] SmartNews 5/5 · US Great News Sote: Great set up. Easy to navigate
8. [R54] MS NOW 2/5 · US Watch issues: I really enjoy watching MS Now, but the “Watch” live streaming portion of this app is terrible. I am forced to sign out and back in almost every day in order to watch. Then about once a week, I am not able to sign back in and have to completely delete and reinstall the app in order for the watch feature to work again. If I didn’t enjoy watching so much, I would not go through all thi
9. [R56] MS NOW 1/5 · US Completely broken: As others have mentioned, this app is completely broken. Can’t login with your tv provider on iOS or appletv, the sign in button doesn’t even work. Do you actually want people watching your programs because you’re doing everything to make it the opposite.
10. [R86] SmartNews 4/5 · US Often frustrating: Nice aggregate of current news but many stories have so many ads they are unreadable
11. [R117] SmartNews 3/5 · US Too many pop up ads: You can’t read an article without being bombarded with pop-up ads
12. [R32] MS NOW 3/5 · US no cable/big problem: If you want to watch live you must have a cable subscription. I’m not opposed to paying a small fee (like other streaming apps) to access this. When will these sites realize we don’t all worship cable companies?
13. [R58] MS NOW 1/5 · US Joseph and Gary: I love MS Now but listening to it on your app is SO ANNOYING! The repetition of the same commercials over and over I can’t stand it. PLEASE I would be happy to pay for the app and listen to complete show/news with minimal commercials. Can you do anything to help? Thanks
14. [R65] SmartNews 5/5 · US A review: A great way to keep up with what’s going on in the world. Stories from everywhere and very up to date.
15. [R77] SmartNews 5/5 · US Smart News: I like the variety of articles offered and read some each day. This a perfect site to get the information I want.
16. [R47] MS NOW 1/5 · US Worst app ever: I have been writing to this company in hopes they would fix this buggy app but they seem incapable of creating a simple app. Not only do I have to log in every other day instead of staying logged in through my provider (xfinity), but it worked for a few days on my iPad and then suddenly all I get is a black screen when attempting to log in through xFinity. Why can’t they seem to fi
17. [R81] SmartNews 3/5 · US Popups again: Mostly garbage news sources these days. And full page popups are back. Nope nope nope. Delete. Update: Developers respond to requests, so that's nice. Wanted to be able to block specific publishers to try and limit the fluff and sure enough they added the feature. Current issue keeping me from using the iPad app at all now, and to some degree the iPhone as well, is the damn gamif