Habari za Hivi Punde

Opening the app for the first time

The splash screen stays up for about three seconds. Then the main feed loads. Nothing is cached from the previous session. Every launch forces a fresh pull from the server. The top bar shows the Habari za Hivi Punde logo and a menu icon. Below that, a row of topic filters: Politics, Sports, Entertainment, International, and Local. Tapping any filter reloads the entire list. The default view is "Breaking News." Stories appear as cards with a headline, a short excerpt, and a thumbnail image. The thumbnails are small on phones. They look better on tablets. Scrolling is smooth on newer devices. Older phones experience stutter. The app does not preload images. Each image loads as you scroll past it. This causes a slight delay. The delay is noticeable on slower connections. The search bar is at the top. Typing a keyword returns a list of related articles. The search is fast. But it only searches article titles. It does not search the full text. The app does not have a dark mode. That is a common complaint across user feedback. The settings menu offers limited control. You can turn notifications on or off globally. There is no per-topic toggle. You cannot set quiet hours. You cannot choose between instant alerts and daily digests. The notification sound is the same for all alerts. There is no way to customize it.

Breaking news alerts and the user interface — a missed connection

The app lets you enable push notifications. You are prompted to allow them on first launch. The notifications are for breaking news and major events. This sounds useful. But the implementation has problems. The notification system does not respect topic boundaries. Users report receiving notifications for topics they did not follow. The app also sends notifications for articles you have already read. The system does not track read status across devices. If you read an article on the website, the app will still notify you about it. The "Breaking News" section is supposed to be the primary feed. It shows the latest stories. But the interface does not prioritize alerts effectively. When a notification arrives, tapping it opens the app. But the app does not scroll to the relevant article. You have to find it manually in the feed. This is frustrating. The notification sound is the same for all alerts. There is no way to customize it. The settings menu offers limited control. You can turn notifications on or off globally. There is no per-topic toggle. You cannot set quiet hours. You cannot choose between instant alerts and daily digests. The push notification service uses Firebase Cloud Messaging. This is a standard solution. But the app does not handle token refresh properly. Some users report that notifications stop working after a few weeks. The only fix is to reinstall the app. This is a known issue. The developer has not addressed it in recent updates. The changelog mentions an API level upgrade. But it does not specify which bugs were fixed. The notification problem persists across multiple versions.

Performance, crashes, and the sluggish interface

The app is not fast. The initial load takes between four and eight seconds. This is longer than most news apps. The delay comes from the server response. The app makes multiple API calls on startup. It fetches the latest news, the topic list, and the user's saved articles. These calls happen sequentially. They do not run in parallel. This makes the startup time worse. The app also reloads the entire feed when you switch topics. It does not cache the previous feed. So switching from Politics to Sports triggers a new network request. The Sports feed takes another three to five seconds to load. The app does not show a loading indicator during these requests. The screen remains blank. Users think the app has frozen. They tap the screen again. This sometimes triggers a crash. The crash is more common on Android 7 and 8. The app targets a minimum API level of 23. That is Android 6.0. But the app does not handle low-memory conditions well. It crashes when the device has less than 1GB of RAM available. The app also leaks memory over time. Leaving the app open for a few hours causes the memory usage to climb. The system eventually kills the process. The app then restarts from scratch. This resets the feed and loses your scroll position. The scroll position is not saved between sessions. You have to scroll down again to find where you left off. The app does not offer a "mark as read" feature. So you cannot track which articles you have already seen. The video player is also problematic. It sometimes fails to load videos. The error message is generic. It says "Unable to play video." No further details are provided. The app does not support offline reading. You cannot download articles for later. This is a significant limitation for users with limited data.

The permission request screen and what it asks for

The app requests two permissions on first launch. It asks for storage access and notification access. The storage permission is used to cache articles and images. The notification permission is used to send push alerts. The app does not request any other permissions. It does not ask for location, camera, or microphone access. The privacy policy states that data is encrypted in transit. The app shares location and personal info with third parties. The developer does not specify which third parties. The policy also states that you can request data deletion. The app does not offer an in-app option to delete your data. You have to contact the developer via email. The email address is provided in the Play Store listing. The app does not collect data from children. The content rating is not specified. The app is free to download. But it requires a subscription for full access. The subscription price is not listed in the app. You have to visit the website to see the pricing. The app does not support in-app purchases. So you cannot subscribe directly from the app. You have to subscribe on the website and then log in. This creates friction. The login process is also slow. It takes you to a web view. The web view does not remember your credentials. You have to type your email and password every time. The app does not support biometric authentication.