AP Mobile updated but still falls short

The AP News [App Store] iPhone/iPod touch app that rolled out ugly earlier in the week has updated to version 2.01 and fixed that nasty problem that wouldn't let you run the app reliably if you had the previous AP Mobile app already on your phone.

That has been fixed, but the app still suffers from more bugs than the centerfield lights at a night baseball game. When you update to the latest version you will likely lose all your preferences, and as we reported, setting preferences is no small task.

The AP still insists on showing you a front page that wastes 1/3 of its space with a large photo and video icon. Usually, people come to a news app to read the news, but that concept seems lost on the AP. The result of this bad design decision is that only 3 stories show up on the front page, which is not as good as the New York Times app (4), the Bloomberg News app (5), or ABC News (4). Actually, most of the news apps have too much non-essential garbage on the main pages. I'd kinda like to read the news.

I think the AP app scrolling of long stories is still jerky, and some stories display a picture at the top which is so large it takes the whole screen and you can't read any of the story without scrolling.

Also, stories tend to repeat. In my local list of stories, I saw the same story 3 times. Clearly, that shouldn't happen in a well-written app.

All lists of stories must be viewed in portrait orientation, but you can read them in landscape mode, which means constantly switching back and forth between screen types if you want the stories in landscape format. Don't try this if you have vertigo.

The AP app is free, so one hates to complain, but frankly the previous version was easier on the eyes, less buggy, and organized in a way many news junkies would prefer to read the news.

Sometimes "progress" is anything but.