I got the widget as soon as it came out. After a few updates to the app, which I’m not sure updated the widget too, I get this red notification on my iPad if the widget is on my home page. I don’t know how to better explain this. If I have the widget I get this red number 1 notification on my main group of apps, that doesn’t have Duo in it, only settings and main apps of the iPad, I go to the group, but none of the apps have the red number 1 on them. I open each and every app, nothing. Close everything, but the red number 1 stays. I have to take the widget off the homepage, restart the iPad, and then the red 1 goes away. For context, no, I do not use notifications for Duo, I don’t need them as I use the app several times a day and I do not want any notifications from it. It is idiotic to force notifications from apps, it is our responsibility or decision to have that feature on or off, not the developers. So, if the red 1 comes from the need of the app for me to have a notification I do not need nor want I will delete it, even with years of working on it, and a pay subscription. I won’t be forced to put more notifications on my device.

I’ve notice that gifts don’t give tools lately. I’ve just open 40 in a row, not one tool, only energy, coins, and frost flowers. This event is ending, hopefully next event won’t have this issue. This has been happening for a few days, more than a week, probably more than two weeks. Anyway, let’s start the year with a great new event!

This is the worst app on my iPad. An app made by Apple -I assume- for and iPad which is quite new, still, works awful.
Many if not all of the podcasts I follow have episodes on their play list from years ago, 2015, 2021, 2018, 2022, and so on, and so forth.
I have to constantly check and mark as played many of them. Others, I guess I’ll just unsubscribe, it’s just too chaotic.

The last 3 events in a row the game has been great, beautiful new locations, and interesting stories. A few issues here and there, but mostly great gameplay.
They did change how many items to enter the event location you get from other locations, before it was a fix number, now you get a quantity depending on who knows what, drop rate I bet. So if before you got 11 items be it “ giraffe stamps” like in the current event, now you get 6-10. Awful, just to force you to buy if you are low. Buy what? Well, stamps, or energy, or crystals, or whatever you may need to finish the event, awful way to force a buy.

So, new iPad, old one too old to fix, fine. Downloaded this app, it doesn’t remember what has been played. I’m listening to X podcast, selected for the app to only show me unplayed episodes, pressed play, still the playlist goes all the way to the beginning! Ok, I’m cleaning the lists manually on some of the podcasts, others will have to wait. But even on pods I’ve cleaned old episodes keep popping up, just now, for the fifth time on a “newer pod,” I think it has a year of episodes, I keep getting them from 2022, (we are in 2023 for context). Fix this crap already, it has nothing to do with how old my iPad or app is at this point. And on old podcasts I get older episodes still, just got a random ep from 2018 in one, and one from 2017 in another, just one random episode for no good reason.

So, new iPad, old one too old to fix, fine. Downloaded this app and find that it doesn’t remember what I heard before. I’m listening to X podcast, I have selected for the app to only show me unplayed episodes, pressed play, still the playlist goes all the way to the beginning of the show! Ok, I’m cleaning the lists manually on some of the podcasts, others will have to wait. But now, even on pods I’ve cleaned old episodes keep popping up, just now, for the fifth time on a “newer podcast,” I think it has a year of episodes, I keep getting them from 2022, (we are in 2023 for context). Fix this crap already, it has nothing to do with how old my iPad or app is at this point.

It’s a new feature! Why? Just breaks the flow of the game, sure, I’ll watch your adds to get more time, but let me spend my chronometer the way I want and not interrupt my gameplay.
…
Where is the chronometer! WHERE! I have and bought chronometers, still, I enter and can’t see none to use, but the cube to fix words around (can’t remember the name) is there? Even though the stage is on normal words mode, or night mode? Why would I need the cube, I need the chronometer!

Where is the chronometer! WHERE!
I have and bought chronometers, still, I enter and can’t see none to use, but the cube to fix words around (can’t remember the name) is there? Even though the stage is on normal words mode, or night mode? Why would I need the cube, I need the chronometer!

Had to use an android phone this morning so I wouldn’t loose my early bird chest, now I open it here, and I don’t have it! (My account both times, super Duolingo).
Besides that I noticed the features in android included something about late night studying, or something to that effect, why don’t we have the same features? What else are we missing?

I had a bug in the crystals mini game during the weekend, gems wouldn’t move for some reason, it was annoying, hopefully it’ll get resolved.
The additional house to show what we’ve accomplished is nice, thanks for thinking of it, hopefully it’ll get updates in the future, so we get more “trophies,” it was a good idea.
And today we got a half an hour we could “save” to used in a 24 hour period, that’s what I’ve been saying during November’s event, I don’t know how many 2 hours gifts I lost because I entered the game to play for a few minutes between meetings and couldn’t stay logged in to play! That was not fair as they didn’t feel like gifts, should I’ve known that at that particular moment I was going to get 2 hours of free play I wouldn’t have entered the game. Not fair at all.
So, if you can do it for the half hour time, you can truly gift a 2 hour free play. Other wise it’s just a tease, and makes it unfair for people that have to go back to real life commitments.

So, Nov 2022 event came later this year, great! (Sarcasm), and with a new bug, it’s been 3 days since I updated it, still stuck on day one of daily rewards, even though I have played daily for months! Any way, hopefully they’ll fix that, but today when I entered because I had 10 minutes before a meeting I was granted a “gift”, I’m not sure if it is because of the delay in the update of the event or the bug because I’m still on day one of daily rewards, but the “gift” included 2 hours of free energy. Which I of course LOST. Why give to hours of free energy play without the possibility of using it later on! Of course you have to accept the “gift” because it comes with other perks, but I LOST the energy. Why do this? Is infuriating. Edit: day 4 of being stuck on the first day of daily rewards. You should re gift 2 hours of free energy play to all, but make it available for when we can actually use it! Edit day 4: still stuck on daily rewards day 1, but after playing a bit saw an update available! Did they fix this? Did they cause a new bug? Only playing time will tell… did go to a 2 star rating until I have more time to test this up… but, I still think those 2 hours of free play were not a real gift for “our troubles” with the tardiness of the event, as we can use them as we please, only when we got them and I in particular did not have 2 hours at that time to use them. So no 5 stars ever again for this game until gifts can be used at will. (Just last event we got a gift of energy that could be saved for a while, so don’t tell me it can’t be done). Edit day 6: ok, so it seems the daily rewards bug was finally fixed, for 2 days at least. BUT they again gave a 2 hours free energy play, without the possibility of using it LATER! So, again I only used like 20 minutes of the whole 2 hours, what is this for? Are you trying to annoy the users? I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like to be able to used these energy gifts at a more convenient time of the day, and not straight when we open the game. This has been done, on October I received 30 minutes I could use later, why not do the same!?

And it would be a 5/5 but I haven’t been able to purchase those diamonds in the tip jar, for some reason it says I need a stable connection? I have a pretty good one, so I don’t get what’s the issue.

Ah, this game…. Goes great one week, south the next.
This contest wasn’t a contest before. One used to search for highlighted items and would get gifts, INDEPENDENT from other players, not online “who is the best at searching for the highlighted item in x amount of time.” The player usually had 2 days to complete their mission on their game, and got 3 stages of gifts as you progressed. Now, is a contest, now you’ll get prices at the end of the contest depending of -I guess- how many hours and money you spend trying to get as many highlighted objects as you can in “x amount of time.” Well, I won’t, this change is ludicrous. This game already asks that you participate in so many online activities which were not needed before, I don’t need 30 minutes of free game play at the end of another stupid contest.

Edit2: fix this app already! Are all those 5 star reviews payed for? Still having issues while using this app and any other app.
Edit: this crappie app had a new update or something and again I have trailers on my podcasts lineups from at least 2015! The last time this happened I had thousands of podcasts that I’ve already listen to back as if never listen to before, it took me about 6 month of just leaving the app during the night to make it manageable, if you ask why didn’t I just marked them as read, I tried several methods, ended up having them back on the list that plays no matter what I did, so the only way was to leave it play… and here we are again. Pre edit: Now it won’t even let me do other things on the iPad while using it. It interferes with other apps, even this app, I couldn’t even review the podcast app without this app crashing because I’m using the podcast app! How ironic! Fix this app! If I’m using it and open something else it gets laggy, the sound repeats itself, it’s not as smooth, it gets cracking like an old radio. The episodes I’m listening to are downloaded, so it has nothing to do with streaming, which I could see was the issue, but if I’m downloading them there should not be any interference. Besides the sound, this issue with it not being able to play smoothly in the background of other apps makes it a nuanced and renders the capabilities of the iPad to basically a radio. I either only listen to podcasts and leave everything else closed, or can’t use this app while doing other things. Mind you I’ve been using pods in the background for years, but it’s becoming impossible to do so, and I don’t need this expensive radio, I need an iPad that works.

Edit2: I was finally prompted by the game and was able to use “absolute solvent” against chains! It’s been at least a year if not more since this bug started, to the point that I have enough solvent to use for a while! Thank you to the developers for finally fixing this issue. Now if they could just stop with so many adds so that I can listen to podcasts while playing, that would be amazing.
Will leave the rest for context, will update if this fix continues to work.
Can’t use it against chains, don’t know why but there. I have 40+ of those solvents, but every time I get chains I’m never able to use them. Edit: why oh why can’t you just stop with so many ads?! The game just freezes for a fraction of a second and you end up being redirected to the store, thru safari no less. I’m sure that the issues with disturbing podcasts has to do with this feature, or something similar with connecting to something and disturbing other apps, even when the podcast itself has been downloaded. This has rendered my playing time to half what it used to be with this game, and believe you me, I would not buy anything they sell to finish an event until they fix all these issues, so much so that during the last event I didn’t even try to get the upgrade to the tower on the upper city, how can I save seconds in the event if I can’t even play the freaking game?!

Can’t use it against chains, don’t know why but there. I have 40+ of those solvents, but every time I get chains I’m never able to use them.

So, I was liking Duo’s badges, it was fun while they lasted. But it seems I won’t be having fun with them anymore, now you have to do quest to reach your badge, but what this forces you to do is enter the app several times a day, or at least each time the quests reset to earn more points, the problem is, I can’t be continuously entering the app to reach quest, I have other things to do in a day, (work/study/family/friends/read/and so on), I do make time to enter once a day and learn a language, but asking to re enter multiple times, no thanks, only yesterday one of the quests on French was: meet Junior 3 times in lessons, I tried, couldn’t find him at the time, and didn’t come back later because I had things to do. Also, there are quest that seem to need “friends” to make them available, none of my friends are learning the same languages as me, so I guess the only way would be to pester my friends or family to “play with me” which I would hate to do, or find “online friends” to work on those together which I won’t do, I don’t need another app forcing this “friendships” on me, I learn fine on my own, so for people like me the badges will end up being a nuisance and not something fun I got while learning.

Edit: the game no longer crashes if I’m listening to podcasts while playing, but still clashes with it. Podcasts audio repeats itself, and after a while it just goes silent. I don’t know what could be going on as everything is up to date, (updated), but anyway, is making me use this game and the iPad less and less. I still think is not this game completely at fault here, but is the one that has been causing the most trouble while listening to podcasts. (Left a review with podcasts too, but they do less than this developer so, I don’t think they will help much tbh).
Yesterday I updated to the latest update, now the game is crashing if I open it while listening to podcasts. For the longest time I’ve been playing the game while using apple podcast app, years. For a couple of months every time I play while listening to podcasts the game interferes with the other app, but I’ve become accustomed to the issue, so much so I’ve never mentioned here. But now, I did the update yesterday and the game just crashes if I’m also listening to podcasts. I have all the sounds on the game off, so they shouldn’t clash, but I know it can be an issue with apple podcast app more than this game, but until yesterday the game “always won” over the pods, now it crashes.

Now it won’t even let me do other things on the iPad while using it. It interferes with other apps, even this app, I couldn’t even review the podcast app without this app crashing because I’m using the podcast app! How ironic! Fix this app! If I’m using it and open something else it gets laggy, the sound repeats itself, it’s not as smooth, it gets cracking like an old radio. The episodes I’m listening to are downloaded, so it has nothing to do with streaming, which I could see was the issue, but if I’m downloading them there should not be any interference. Besides the sound, this issue with it not being able to play smoothly in the background of other apps makes it a nuanced and renders the capabilities of the iPad to basically a radio. I either only listen to podcasts and leave everything else closed, or can’t use this app while doing other things. Mind you I’ve been using pods in the background for years, but it’s becoming impossible to do so, and I don’t need this expensive radio, I need and iPad which works.

Yesterday I updated to the latest update, now the game is crashing if I open it while listening to podcasts. For the longest time I’ve been playing the game while using apple podcast app, years. For a couple of months every time I play while listening to podcasts the game interferes with the other app, but I’ve become accustomed to the issue, so much so I’ve never mentioned here. But now, I did the update yesterday and the game just crashes if I’m also listening to podcasts. Now, I have all the sounds on the game off, so they shouldn’t clash, but I know it can be an issue with apple podcast app more than this game, but until yesterday the game “always won” over the pods, now it crashes.
So yesterday was the order’s chest mini event, which I hate, it seemed out of the 15 people on the team, only 5 really make an effort. Anyway, the bug is as follows, in the main event you had to collect at least 700 way finders, and I mean during the whole man April event, and yesterday there was an order’s chest event, I collected at least 1000 wayfinders yesterday, but the count on the main event stopped at 807. To reiterate, the main April event asks you to collect a total of 700, during this week mini event of the order’s chest I collected at least 1000, but the game only counted up to 807 wayfinders. And. Know this because I took screenshots because out of 15 people only 5 do the work.

So yesterday was the order’s chest mini event, which I hate, it seemed out of the 15 people on the team, only 5 really make an effort. Anyway, the bug is as follows, in the main event you had to collect at least 700 way finders, and I mean during the whole man April event, and yesterday there was an order’s chest event, I collected at least 1000 wayfinders yesterday, but the count on the main event stopped at 807. To reiterate, the main April event asks you to collect a total of 700, during this week mini event of the order’s chest I collected at least 1000, but the game only counted up to 807 wayfinders. And. Know this because I took screenshots because out of 15 people only 5 do the work.

There was a big update last year if I recall correctly. The app went downhill from then on.
For example: there is this podcast (well known) that makes extra shows between their main shows, I don’t want to listen to them, I have tried everything to get those shows out of the list (that appears on the right hand side of the app), I have tried to mark them as read, I have tried to download the other episodes and not those, I have tried to swipe the while on the main list of said show, but still there they are, waiting to be played, I don’t want them there!
Besides that lately the app goes off for no reason, and I have to re open it and wait for it to reload before I can continue listening. For example: I was listening right now, and came here to leave this review, and the app stopped working, nothing else is open right now on my iPad, only this app (podcast) and this review (apps) and the podcast app just crashed, yesterday it happened 4 times and I just stopped using it.
Another thing, it does not keep up with some settings as smoothly as before, I have my iPad set so that at night the apps go dark, but always since this mega update when I open this app at night is bright white, not black, is so common that now I open it with my eyes closed or looking elsewhere, close it, and reopen it for the black setting to kick in.

Now with this “winter amusement” of Christmas weekend, 25-26 December.
I’ve finished many of the tasks that are available during the event, only to not receive the items to open the corresponding chest! Hours playing this weekend only to not being able to advance at all with the mini event!
Besides that, random advertisements just stop the game from functioning properly, and get the user to tap on them and go to “download app.” I do not need another buggy game from G5, I need the games I’ve already put money in to work properly!

I have absolute solvent to expel the anomaly, but the game won’t let me used them. I think it’s the only mini game that has this problem, but I don’t have all of the other equipments to know if there’s another bug.

Still, hate the “charge your friends locations” we need to do from time to time. Most times there’s a problem with the connection and it just won’t load.
Wish this game could be played without these type of requests.

Edit: for anyone playing, if you’re doing a task in the “upper city” do not go to the “lower city” until you finish: I was playing both “customer base” and “finding a cat” today, finished the former, and had at least 6 of 9 places done of the later, went to the lower city to check statues and the sort and when I came back up “finding a cat” only had 1 of 9 done!
Awful bug this new one, you just can’t change places. (August 20)
BTW I could never finish August 17 task, it just never reappear.
But alas! We have a new bug! I was just playing today’s challenge (can’t remember what name it has but today is Tuesday, August 17, 2021). Anyway, was half way through it, then I went to “lower city” to search for those mimes, and the challenge disappeared! Great! (Sarcasm). Went back up to see if that would fix it, but no. Exited the game closed it, came back, no. Restarted my iPad, no. Came here to see if there was a new version of the game, and there was, updated it, but the game still won’t show today’s challenge.

But alas! We have a new bug!
I was just playing today’s challenge (can’t remember what name it has but today is Tuesday, August 17, 2021). Anyway, was half way through it, then I went to “lower city” to search for those mimes, and the challenge disappeared! Great! (Sarcasm). Went back up to see if that would fix it, but no. Exited the game closed it, came back, no. Restarted my iPad, no. Came here to see if there was a new version of the game, and there was, updated it, but the game still won’t show today’s challenge.

Edit 2: Now after the latest update it just crashes, it tries to open the new location, but it crashes before finishing all the dialogue.
Edit: Just as I thought, the new “Easter location” became available on the 1 of April. I’ve been trying to update the game since Monday 29 of March to no avail, no update ever came, but “in game” you could read a “new location was coming soon!”
Then after finally being able to get such new location/update, I find out there was an “in game small task” (really don’t know what to call it) on Tu 30 “Spring Preparations,” never got it on iPad, it may have run correctly on pc but not here, so I lost it. Then thru We-Th 31-1 came “Easter Egg Hunt,” I nearly missed it, only being able to play yesterday April fools day, NOT FUNNY.
The developers keep having issues on iPad, don’t expect to get anything from them but a “we are sorry,” they aren’t, these issues should not keep happening after all these years. Other games when they realize something went wrong at least give out a couple of “in game credits,” they don’t.
We were playing the last location until Sunday, can’t remember the name.
For some reason the developers set this locations to finish on Sunday and not on, for example the 31 of March, giving us a couple of extra days to finish all that’s required to get 5 stars in the new location.
Now, since Monday, we’ve been waiting for this new location of Easter, but nothing yet, I’m betting it will start on the 1 of April.
So why couldn’t we play these extra days on the last location?
This is something that happens a lot, finish on a Sunday no matter the date, start on a first of next month.
Many of my “friends in game” don’t even get 3 stars for each location, and I guess it’s because they don’t buy tools or diamonds etc. to be able to complete these locations in time; but I’m sure that for others it’s just a matter of lack of time to finish that last star.

Edit: Just as I thought, the new “Easter location” became available on the 1 of April. I’ve been trying to update the game since Monday 29 of March to no avail, no update ever came, but “in game” you could read a “new location was coming soon!”
Then after finally being able to get such new location/update, I find out there was an “in game small task” (really don’t know what to call it) on Tu 30 “Spring Preparations,” never got it on iPad, it may have run correctly on pc but not here, so I lost it. Then thru We-Th 31-1 came “Easter Egg Hunt,” I nearly missed it, only being able to play yesterday April fools day, NOT FUNNY.
The developers keep having issues on iPad, don’t expect to get anything from them but a “we are sorry,” they aren’t, these issues should not keep happening after all these years. Other games when they realize something went wrong at least give out a couple of “in game credits,” they don’t.
We were playing the last location until Sunday, can’t remember the name.
For some reason the developers set this locations to finish on Sunday and not on, for example the 31 of March, giving us a couple of extra days to finish all that’s required to get 5 stars in the new location.
Now, since Monday, we’ve been waiting for this new location of Easter, but nothing yet, I’m betting it will start on the 1 of April.
So why couldn’t we play these extra days on the last location?
This is something that happens a lot, finish on a Sunday no matter the date, start on a first of next month.
Many of my “friends in game” don’t even get 3 stars for each location, and I guess it’s because they don’t buy tools or diamonds etc. to be able to complete these locations in time; but I’m sure that for others it’s just a matter of lack of time to finish that last star.

We were playing the last location until Sunday, can’t remember the name.
For some reason the developers set this locations to finish on Sunday and not on, for example the 31 of March, giving us a couple of extra days to finish all that’s required to get 5 stars in the new location.
Now, since Monday, we’ve been waiting for this new location of Easter, but nothing yet, I’m betting it will start on the 1 of April.
So why couldn’t we play these extra days on the last location?
This is something that happens a lot, finish on a Sunday no matter the date, start on a first of next month.
Many of my “friends in game” don’t even get 3 stars for each location, and I guess it’s because they don’t buy tools or diamonds etc. to be able to complete these locations in time; but I’m sure that for others it’s just a matter of lack of time to finish that last star.