Helena Independent Record 12+

The IR app has serious performance problems; specifically, any time i try to click a push notification, the app crashes every time, requiring me to relaunch the app and manually search for whatever story caught my eye...and there is no “latest news” section to find it in. Layout is poor too; pages are riddled with add content that is poorly formatted, causing text to frequently jump around. Finally, the IR has suffered from lackluster coverage and writing for years; headlines or story leads are frequently confusingly written or don’t accurately sum up the details in the full article. Push notifications often promote opinion articles that it perhaps thinks will generate more traffic, regardless of the quality of those editorials. Unfortunately the IR is one of the few online sources for local Helena news...for State-wide news, I usually turn instead to Yellowstone Public Radio, Montana Public Radio, or Montana Free Press for better coverage and more engaging news write-ups.

This app used to more closely follow the print edition now it is dominated by irrelevant local sports and has very limited local news. If you click on notifications to check the story, the text is blocked and you are requested to participate in a survey (this can, however, be averted by backing out of the story and then opening it from the app). This app needs a complete redo and a new content editor.

I was in a much larger metropolitan area in Idaho (than Helena) last week and Sunday I had a need for some print news - so I bought a paper there. The Independent Record far exceeds the paper I read. I was done in minutes and was not mentally satisfied. Keep up the good work.