The Medium App: It’s a Love and Hate Relationship

When the Medium app works, I love it. And it works most of the time. Especially for reading. It has been a boon to me as a reader on Medium.

For writing? It is very useful, especially when adding figures, captions, headings, alt-text, etc. Yet it can be tetchy.

And when it crashes, I curse the day it was born.

Reading on the Medium App

Don’t get me wrong. I love, adore, and cherish reading on the Medium app. It’s far better than just navigating to the Medium website. For one thing, the Medium app doesn’t make me sign in repeatedly. It remembers who I am. Aww, how sweet.

It makes following topics and people all too easy. (Don’t worry, Medium programmers. That’s a compliment.) I start looking for a topic (or a tag), and then I find more than I expected. Then, I end up following several new-to-me writers and find myself reading several of their articles on something else because the titles beckon me. That’s a feature, not a bug.

I do wish searches could be better customized. Or maybe they can, and I just haven’t figured it out yet. Searching for a popular topic brings up a lot of hits, and if I want something more recent instead of a popular article from 2016?… There must be more.

There’s Always a But…

But… writing on the Medium app? Well, it depends… There is love there, but there is also hate. Kind of like Robert Mitchum’s famous tattoo in The Night of the Hunter.

Love and Hate. (Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash.)

How I Use the Medium App to Write

I don’t. (Is it just me?)

Instead, I write my articles in Word. That way, I can write without fearing a crash. Also, I can check the spelling and grammar. (Hey, sometimes I type too fast!)

Yes, I know this might not be how most members use the app. Call me old-fashioned, call me… late for dinner?

Sidebar: Katy Preen explores skipping the “middleman” and Using the Medium Mobile App to Write Your Articles. I’m not that brave! But check that article out if you want to learn more. Also, in an article for Bulletproof Writers, Katy Preen then delves into more detail in the article Watch Out For…