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Updated July 2026 · real, multi-region App Store reviews
Head-to-head

The Atlantic Magazine vs The Economist

The Atlantic Magazine 4.9★ · Free + IAP 60
Winner The Economist
The Economist 4.9★ · Free + IAP 70

For users prioritizing a smooth app experience with essential features, The Economist has a slight edge, despite its own issues, while The Atlantic Magazine struggles significantly with app functionality.

Full reviews: The Atlantic Magazine · The Economist

The Atlantic Magazine is praised for its high-quality journalism but is severely hampered by a buggy, ad-laden app with poor functionality. The Economist also receives high marks for its content and has a generally better-performing app, though it faces criticism for AI narration, storage issues, and some app bugs.

Head to head

Journalism Quality tieR2R5R8R20
The Atlantic Magazine Users consistently laud The Atlantic Magazine for its intelligent, analytical, well-researched, and thought-provoking articles, often calling it top-tier journalism with less bias and more fact-checking R2R5R8. Many appreciate its in-depth coverage and ability to provide unique insights R20.
The Economist The Economist is highly regarded for its concise, timely, well-informed, and data-based journalism, offering stimulating global articles and contextual commentary . Users appreciate its non-partisan approach and ability to provide a broader perspective .
App Functionality & Reliability edge: The EconomistR1R3R6R7
The Atlantic Magazine The Atlantic Magazine's app is widely criticized for being buggy and unreliable R1R6R7. Users report issues such as blank pages, articles skipping ahead, inability to share articles, broken crossword features, and difficulty with search R6R7. The app also drains battery excessively and lacks basic features like text size adjustments and article history R3.
The Economist The Economist's app has seen significant improvements over the years, with many users finding it well-designed and stable . However, it still suffers from issues like losing state, not remembering reading position, slow loading, lag, and occasional crashes R60R63R69. Storage management is a major complaint, with the app consuming large amounts of data and lacking easy deletion options R56R60R62.
User Experience (Reading/Listening) tieR3R6R7R12
The Atlantic Magazine While the content is praised, the reading experience on The Atlantic Magazine's app is hindered by a lack of adjustable font size R3, issues with bold text after updates R12, and difficulty navigating between articles or from external links R6R7. The audio version is appreciated for accessibility R16R26, but some find the AI voice for reading to be horrible .
The Economist The Economist offers well-organized articles with read times and a popular audio feature . However, the recent shift to AI narration is a significant drawback for many, who find the AI voices stilted, lifeless, and annoying R53R59. Menu fonts are also criticized for being too small, and the app can be cluttered with static headers .
Ads and Subscription Value tieR4R9R13R51
The Atlantic Magazine Subscribers to The Atlantic Magazine are frustrated by the presence of ads, including full-screen and embedded ads, even with a paid subscription R4R9R13. This significantly detracts from the perceived value of the subscription R4R13.
The Economist The Economist also draws criticism for ads, with subscribers reporting full-screen inline ads, pop-ups, and distracting animated adverts within articles, despite paying for a subscription R51R77. Some users find the subscription prices to be too expensive .
Customer Support tieR4R63R69
The Atlantic Magazine One user reported a very poor experience with The Atlantic Magazine's technical support, being stuck in multiple loops with a helper bot and never reaching a human R4.
The Economist Reviews for The Economist do not extensively cover customer support, but one user mentioned submitting multiple bug reports without acknowledgment or action R63. Another noted the in-app feedback form itself failed R69.
Pick The Atlantic Magazine if

you prioritize deep, analytical, and less biased journalism above all else, and are willing to tolerate significant app frustrations and ads even with a subscription R5R8.

Pick The Economist if

you seek concise, timely, and data-based global analysis, and prefer an app that, while not perfect, is generally more functional and stable than its competitor, especially if you value audio content .

Evidence note: Both apps have a significant number of negative reviews related to app functionality, often from paying subscribers. The Economist has a higher volume of reviews overall, which might slightly skew the perception of its issues compared to The Atlantic Magazine's. The 'free vs paid' asymmetry is less pronounced here as both apps are 'Free + IAP' and many negative reviews come from paying subscribers.

Frequently asked

Do The Atlantic Magazine and The Economist apps have ads for subscribers?
Yes, both The Atlantic Magazine and The Economist apps display ads even for paying subscribers, which is a significant point of frustration for users R4R13R51R77.
Can I adjust the font size in The Atlantic Magazine app?
No, The Atlantic Magazine app currently lacks the ability to adjust font size, which is a critical feature requested by many users, especially older readers R3.
Do these apps offer audio versions of articles?
Yes, both apps offer audio versions of articles; The Atlantic Magazine's audio feature is generally well-received for accessibility R16R26, while The Economist's recent shift to AI narration for many articles is widely criticized as inferior to human voices R53R59.
Are there known issues with app storage for The Economist?
Yes, The Economist app is a significant data hog, often consuming gigabytes of storage, and users report that managing and deleting downloaded editions is cumbersome, lacking a 'delete all' option or automated deletion R56R60R62.

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 100 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. [R2] The Atlantic Magazine 5/5 · US Easy: Good writing available quickly and convenient with iPhone.
  2. [R5] The Atlantic Magazine 5/5 · US Well done!: It is a pleasure to read articles with intelligent, analytical content! I have never been disappointed!
  3. [R8] The Atlantic Magazine 5/5 · US Good reporting can be hard to find: The Atlantic, like a few other outlets still provides news and analysis the way we remember it from several storied outlets and publishers. Less bias, more fact-checked and vetted sources, and intelligently developed features and opinions.
  4. [R20] The Atlantic Magazine 5/5 · US Father’s Day gift: My son gifted me with this wonderful opportunity. Everything the new outlets refuses to address I have found in The Atlantic thus far. I am completely enjoying my gift.
  5. [R1] The Atlantic Magazine 2/5 · US App=terrible…but good journalism: Hey, let me know when you work all the bugs out of your app so I can begin enjoying your content again. Until then I’ll read the print version. You are much better journalists than app developers, don’t quit my your day jobs!
  6. [R3] The Atlantic Magazine 3/5 · US Give your readers text size adjustments!!!: One of, maybe THE dean of thoughtful topical writing, can’t seem to provide what virtually every half-baked news source does … give its readers the ability to adjust font size! Your average subscriber, I’d guess, is not 20 years old. Provide dynamic adjustable display sizes now please. It’s vital. The Atlantic is an outlier in its inability to keep
  7. [R6] The Atlantic Magazine 3/5 · US Needs improvement…: There are several issues with this app. First, there is no article share button, you have to go to the website, which makes zero sense. Second, I often get a blank page while reading an article, and I have to click back to the main page and click on the article again. Finally, if I go to another app and return to the article, it skips ahead and I have to scroll back to where I w
  8. [R7] The Atlantic Magazine 1/5 · US App needs a rewrite: Great articles. Horrible app. If you see an article on Facebook you can't navigate easily to the article in the app. I tried the app search feature typing the exact name of the article and it didn't appear. I tried using the authors name and couldn't find it easily. The navigation and look up seems archaic.
  9. [R12] The Atlantic Magazine 3/5 · US Update messed up fonts!!!: I recently opened my Atlantic app to find that all the text went from regular to bold. I think this corresponds with a recent app update. iPhone 17, most recent system. Really destroys the reading experience.
  10. [R4] The Atlantic Magazine 2/5 · US $100 Subscription Contains Ads: Content aside (-4.7 bias from AllSides), which y’all probably know going into a subscription, the platform contains ads directly embedded in its articles on the app. Unsubscribing after less than 1 hour of use. Edit: dropping star rating after attempting to interact with technical support for about 40min. Never got to a human and entered multiple loops with the hel
  11. [R9] The Atlantic Magazine 3/5 · US Annoying commercial: Stop with the AI commercial from pwc!!
  12. [R13] The Atlantic Magazine 1/5 · US Subscription?: You pay for a "subscription", and yet, the articles are littered with TEMU Ads. among many? = W R O N G ! ! !
  13. [R51] The Economist 2/5 · GB Getting spammy: It’s all getting a bit spammy. The full screen inline ads, the popups asking for notification access, the overlays asking me if I want to listen to some podcast. Dunno, maybe that’s just the way of it. Annoys the hell out of me though.
  14. [R63] The Economist 1/5 · GB Keeps getting worse: I have lost count of the amount of bug reports I have submitted for this app relating to audio and video playback. None of them acknowledged let alone acted upon. Still we have mandatory autoplay of *already* played podcasts. Syncing of progress or read articles between devices non existent. And now we have Insider video autoplaying on the hone screen with no ability to disabl
  15. [R69] The Economist 1/5 · GB Poor App Performance: The app is increasingly failing. Screen freezes. Scrolling very sticky (especially on 1843 articles for some reason). Page swipes, long delays. Possibly due to all the annoying adverts? Failures in sending gift articles (but your allowance gets reduced each time!) I’ve had to submit this review here as the feedback form on the app also fails! Despite deleting and reloading th
  16. [R77] The Economist 5/5 · GB Great but why are there advertisements on my iPhone App: Greatly impressed with the content and writing quality but very dissatisfied to get advertisements on my iPhone App. After all, that’s why one pays for a subcritical.
  17. [R16] The Atlantic Magazine 4/5 · US Love audio version of stories: The Atlantic’s use of audio versions of its articles helps with accessibility to the articles.
  18. [R26] The Atlantic Magazine 5/5 · US Strong investigative reporting: The Atlantic is a beacon of light during these murky times. Thanks for taking risks. I love the option to either read or listen. I get the print magazine too.
  19. [R53] The Economist 3/5 · GB AI narration ruins the audio edition: Every week, at least a few articles in the audio edition are AI narrated, and they are very noticeable. It’s a shame, I really liked the human narrated articles (albeit with some fairly odd pronunciations, my theory is they’re pronouncing things in the American way, but with a British accent). The app itself is a vast improvement on the one they had a few yea
  20. [R59] The Economist 3/5 · GB Cut the AI: AI narration and other slop initiatives risk obscuring the human journalism that lies at the heart of the Economist
  21. [R56] The Economist 3/5 · GB Storage data hog: Why on earth does this app need to keep 2,5GB of data on my phone.
  22. [R60] The Economist 2/5 · GB Great journalism, poor app: Seems to lose state quite often, which simply highlights the lack of an easy way to hop into the next weekly edition article other than slowly scrolling through the list trying to find it. It’s also very bad at recalling your position in an article. Also needs to skip articles you’ve already read when moving to the next article on things like the weekly edition. Will
  23. [R62] The Economist 3/5 · GB Good content but fills up your phone: It’s a good way to see the Economist when you’re on the go. But management of phone storage is atrocious. You have to search through and delete each week’s edition one by one. No delete all. No handy page to select them. No automated delete-after-a-month. The recommended solution is to uninstall the whole app and start again 🤦

Synthesized from 100 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store