The New York Times Crossword

I've been enjoying this app a lot on my Surface Pro 4 with the stylus. It is a well designed Windows 10 app and was something I was looking forward to using on a long flight over the Christmas holidays. Instead, I was supremely disappointed to find that this App spikes up CPU usage to over 60% the moment it loses an internet connection (so Airplane mode will trigger this). Your machine will heat up, battery life will be destroyed and the app becomes extremely sluggish with stylus input being unusable due to the high latency from all the CPU churning the app causes. This is a reproducible issue. You can start the app with WiFi on and it will work as expected with ~ 1% CPU utilization. The moment you turn off/disable your WiFi, you will suddenly see CPU utilization spike up and remain sustained at high levels. This is a very disappointing bug and makes this app completely unusable on mobile Windows devices. I hope the developers address this soon.

When I paid for the crossword subscription, this app was fun to use on the Surface Pro 4 because it offered full support for the Surface Pen. The version upgrade has killed that. Now it behaves like the web version, which lacks the functionality I liked in the app. You can't write with the pen or use its eraser. It doesn't work at all in tablet mode, because there's no input method. So you can't work the crossword puzzle while comfortably sitting on the couch, or with a cup of coffee in one hand. The user experience was the main reason I paid for a subscription. Customer support by phone was no help whatsoever previously when I called because the previous version suddenly stopped working. My email to customer support was ignored - until I wrote a review! Access to the crossword puzzle is good - except the initial screen wrongly says my subscription has expired and forces several extra clicks- settings, account, login. The app needs another tune-up.

It's a great crossword - when it works. On Sunday, there weren't enough squares, so apparently I was supposed to find a way to put four letters (two for each direction) into a single square. Today's puzzle was totally jacked up - apparently when I did my crunches this morning I was exercising my AHS. And when I fasten two pieces of paper together I would use a STATLER. For lunch, I could have a BLT - a BARON, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich. You GOR ME as to how I can possibly TRYST any of the answers. For GED's sake, get your act together. I mean, it might be "Much AGO About Nothing," but if you expect me to pony up for a subscription after the preview period is up, you'll really need to FOX these bugs. It's enough to make me say FOE on the whole thing