National Geographic

Every time I try to watch a video it doesn’t work. Never has!

I plan to get a subscription soon I hope this is any good but based on the some of the other reviews I have read it doesn’t sound good and it’s quite out of date

One star because the main reason I wanted this app on the iPad and iPhone was to watch videos with my kid. No videos play anymore. I can’t find a way to submit this problem to customer support on the National Geographic website or to the app designers. (The latter is just a link to the same NG website page.) This is really frustrating as a paid subscriber to two of their magazines.

I’m a subscriber to print & digital editions. As countless others have highlighted, the app used to bring article carve-outs, videos, and other info graphics to life in amazing way. With the new updates this is not the case and at times is actually even a worse experience to just viewing on a browser. Let’s see if developers eventually get the hint... the app deserves to be on the podium of amazing iPad & iPhone experiences — not the other way around.

I really miss the old app where you could read the Nat Geo magazines like a magazine. It was really cool how the app would allow you to click on links to read even more about a topic. But now it’s a weird webpage looking interface and I HATE it. I subscribed to a magazine! Not a webpage! I hope this gets fixed because it is really bothering my enjoyment of the subscription!

I used to tell everyone that National Geographic had it right with their digital version and was leading the way that every print magazine needed to follow. This DOWNGRADE changed all that...National Geographic is now one of the worst digital magazines out there. Unless things change by the time my subscription ends, this will be the last year I will be subscribing...very sad after almost 30 years! UPDATE (12/6/2020): I was hoping that the publishers of National Geographic would come to their senses and realize that the path they have chosen was an error and would do like Coke did when they dropped New Coke and went back to Coke Classic. Sadly, it has become clear that the publishers of National Geographic don’t really care what their customers want in their product and are sticking with their new App which is nothing more than a website browser just to their site. Just to be clear, what they had in the previous version was near perfect...a digital version of the printed magazine, closely matching the look and feel but with the ability to download and read the desired issues at anytime from anywhere. Now, one must have an internet connection for the app to do anything and, even with that, you get basically the same experience going to the National Geographic website. Downloading the app is a waste of resources on your device. Recognizing now that the publisher is not willing to listen to their subscribers who have overwhelmingly asked for a return of the old app, with a heavy heart and a deep feeling of loss, I am letting my 30 year relationship with National Geographic expire at the end of the month and will not renew. I’m sure I’ll look for news that they have come to their senses and recognize that the success that they achieved in the first 130 years was based upon content AND format and rectify the direction they are headed with their digital format but expect to actually read about another publisher going out of business due to their inability to transform themselves in the digital age. The most disappointing aspect will be sad knowing that they had it, then lost it. RIP my old friend.

The new 3.0 app is very disappointing. None of the illustrations/maps are part of any of the articles - you need to click on broken links to online versions of the illustration that do not open and that require you to enter your login information every single tome. The app versions of articles feel half baked.

Please fix this.

The app crashed as I flipped pages on an old issue of 1975. I was also disappointed that I couldn’t find an edition from 2006.

I had the digital subscription to National Geographic. First, it was insanely difficult to link my subscription to my account. I contact customer service who weren’t really much help. After multiple temps over 2 days, it finally connected. Now the website is garbage because it won’t load and when it does, it says I need to be a subscriber. I’m logged into my account which is linked to my subscription.. bottom line it shouldn’t be this difficult. Secondly, the app seemed like a good choice BUT it also won’t connect. In fact, I get an error message that says “cannot connect.” I messaged customer service and half asked for a refund. It’s not worth the $12 or frustration.