Curio - Audio Journalism 12+

GREAT content, still some bugs

This is a fantastic app to subscribe to if you want to listen to the best thought-provoking contemporary writing, beautifully read and presented.

However, some bugs and UI issues remain:

Buffering takes ages (up to 20 seconds), even on a fiber-optic or 4G connection.

Play doesn't always start when you press play. Sometimes it seems to just get stuck, perhaps related to buffering issues. You have to pause, play again and wait to buffer again.

It would be great to have a simple way of creating a playlist quickly, for example if one needs 40 mins of content while running. Perhaps a quick swipe adds a piece to the playlist?

There's no feature for continuous play, ie: play one piece and then go straight into the next. You have to stop (running, driving, castigating your child, etc), take out your phone, open the app, get out of the player screen, and select the next item to play (and then wait while it buffers...).

I look forward to the update!

Developer Response ,

Hi, thanks so much for your review and the detailed feedback. Could you please email us on listen@curio.io and let us know whether it buffers for 20 seconds for each piece or if it just happens from time to time? We are aware of the continuous play issue and are working on an update to fix that soon. Finally, may I suggest using the "favourite" function as a means of quickly creating your own playlist? You can just tap on the heart icon to favourite pieces of your choice and then when you go into the "My library" tab, you will have your own playlist under "favourites". You can then just press on the heart again to remove the track from favourites. We thought that while we work on allowing users to create their own playlists, this would be a good interim step. Thanks again!

Payment and subscription is confusing

The app itself seems promising but I don't understand why I've already been charged when I wanted to change to the 7 day free trial. Its also very difficult to find a way to change your subscription to the trial or contact you about the trial. I would like to do the trial so that I can decide which payment plan I'd prefer. I'd personally like to change to an annually subscription but it's very difficult to know how.

Angry

I love your articles but I'm really mad that you completely ignored my emails requesting a cost before just automatically updating my subscription and deducting over r1200 from my account - your subscription notice said just reply to this email if you have any questions - which I did - but there was no response from your side - very bad customer service !
Please could someone respond so I can discuss subscription options!
Thank you