One of the pleasures of my iPad was re-discovering magazines—I always loved them, but could never find the space to store them all in paper, so I restrained myself, and badly missed them. The iPad—especially, the one-stop shop Zinio app, with prices at par with paper subscriptions—was a dream come true. So, one year later, how’s it going?
ISSUE 1: CONTENT QUALITY
The content has been decent. I’ve found a few ironies, of course. Several magazines had full-page ads one month touting how Paper Isn’t Dead, for instance. And some mags, like National Geographic, do a simply gorgeous job and produce a product that is better than paper.
One magazine I will not be renewing was the Food Network magazine. I really enjoyed the articles, the layout and the content overall. However, each month’s issue features a pull-out booklet with a ton of extra content (50 burger variations, 50 after-school snacks etc.) and these booklets for some reason are not converted as part of the Zinio process. It’s simply inexcusable; these are often cover stories on the magazine. A few times, I was able to view some or all of the booklet’s raw text by switching from page view to text view. But it is unacceptable to routinely omit a key selling point of the magazine due to sloppy conversion. It’s a shame, since I otherwise really enjoyed the magazine.
ISSUE 2: USER EXPERIENCE
I love the one-stop shopping; I will never buy a magazine app because I don’t want six billion icons cluttering up my home screen, so having everything in one place is very handy. I like the features of the Zinio app such as the built-in mini web browser for in-article links, and the easy navigation buttons. The app was a bit crashy sometimes, but I could live with this for the most part.
I did find that very text-heavy magazines like O, the Oprah magazine had me squinting, and the zoom or plain text options were fiddly and/or less appealing. Magazines already designed on a smaller page, like Everyday Food, looked gorgeous! I will definitely be renewing my Everyday Food subscription.
ISSUE 3: INFORMATION OVERLOAD
I think that, as usual with a shiny new toy, I over-did it a little since I was so excited and since the prices were so reasonable. I signed up for all sorts of things, the same way people download a hundred Kindle freebies when they first start reading ebooks, and in the coming year I definitely plan to let some of these bargain subscriptions lapse. Sure, I can get a whole year of National Geographic for the price of a coffee and donut, but why on earth did I ever think I was really the kind of person who would read it every month?
I wound up feeling burdened by the sheer quantity of stuff heading my way every month, and even resorted to keeping a to-do list to check them off as I read. That is not the ‘Joanna enjoys magazines!’ mentality I started with! And when these unread bargain issues started eating into needed disk space on my iPad, I confess that I deleted several of them without even reading. If it’s been on my iPad since June 2010 and I haven’t read it yet, I ain’t gonna!
FINAL VERDICT: HOW MANY WILL I RENEW?
So, my verdict? Of the magazines I either sampled or outright subscribed to, here’s my run-down of who stays and who goes:
Whole Living- it goes. Too texty. Much squinting. Blah.
O, the Oprah Magazine- it goes, for the same reason
National Geographic- it’s pretty, but it goes because it is so not my kind of magazine
Reader’s Digest- it goes, for the same reason
Vegetarian Times- it goes, because it turned out to be a kind of sucky magazine
Food Network- it goes, but it would have stayed if they could get their acts together on the pull-out booklet
Everyday Food- love it, looks great on iPad’s screen, it stays
Weight Watchers- it stays, because I follow their plan and want the recipes
So, 2/8 stay. And it could have been 3/8 if someone at Food Network wasn’t blowing it for them.
I actually like Nat’l Geo — at least on the NookColor — and find it so easy to read that way that I am much more likely to read the articles than on the paper version. And it even looks much better than the paper copy.
I hear that the Nook implementation of it (except for unexpected shifting between pages on the edges) is better than on the Zinio. And, at $1.99/month (Zinio’s is $1.25 /mo. I hear), it’s a no-brainer for me. But then I love traveling, so it fits. Stunning work on the digital edition of the mag.
Well, food network and weight watchers do sorta cancel each other out.
Looks like you went the healthy route!
I’ve been trying out Zinio mags on my iPad as well.
Some, like NatGeo Travel are interesting because they incorporate audio and video.
Others I find useful to subscribe to because they’re U.K. publications. A Zinio subscription for me in the U.S. is usually cheaper than the print version. I’m assuming it’s because there’s not a mailing cost worked in. Plus, I get the new issues much faster.
For U.S. based magazine where I’m interested in the content, but not so much in hanging on to each issue, a digital subscription suits me fine.
One overall benefit is that some magazines, in their print form, a using smaller type to fit more content in the same (or less) space. My eye sight is still pretty good, but some magazines should come with a magnifying glass. Being able to zoom in, while a bit clunky at times, makes it much easier to read.
Yeah, I also subscribe to some UK publications. For some reason, the UK is the major publisher of magazines about graphic and web design. They just added .net magazine to their list of offerings – it’s half as much to subscribe online! Quite a deal.