The Sydney Morning Herald 12+

Keep it going. Keep it growing.

You guys are doing a fantastic job. I would suggest you cover humanitarian crisis more, both local and abroad. We’re living in a growingly disunited and unequal world. Conditions that lead to war and with it drown out the voice of the oppressed. Be the media that seeks to be the voice of the voiceless Keep pursuing the truth. Don’t bring news for news sake. Use your independence to toil for the ugly, impalatable and unpopular truth most cower away from. Opinion piece your hearts out bringing the agents of injustice to account. I see great work here. I see great potential too. Keep it going. Keep it growing.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for your support, Adoneus.

Backward step

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that this new app was developed without any user acceptance testing. Most of the features that currently make the "old" app so usable have been left behind in a rush to create something different - not better, just different. A case in point is the herding of all news into "Sections" - previously, I could just quickly browse headlines and decide what interested me; now, for example, I have to guess whether there might be anything useful under the “Sydney" or “NSW" or “Politics” headings today (how would I know, unless I laboriously trawl through each of those?!?). This, I suspect, is what happens when you let your I.T. department design your new-and-improved product - THEY like it, so too bad about the end-user . The old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" applies here ..... Sadly, after years of being a subscriber, the advent of the new app will force me to seek an alternative source come 1st January.

New Sudoko and crosswords format

Sudoku : cant see the wood for the trees, huge " children's book" size type , lots of fussy colours and bands which add nothing, tiny pencil to change ,then miniscule pencil numbers. The much vaunted dynamic type feature of no help in this situation. Like enjoying cycling and then being told can only have a bike with toddlers training wheels. The old format elegant, you could see the relationship between the numbers over the whole puzzle at a glace. Have tried to learn to love it but resent the loss of a pleasure every time I use it.
Crosswords : Using the "reveal word" was a way of speeding up the puzzle when you worked out what the word was. Now you literally get a black mark, makes the puzzle look really ugly , as if you have failed. A really backward step.

These puzzles used to be a daily pleasure. Now they are a daily annoyance. The ABC news and old style paper sudoku and crosswords are my future.