ZINIO - Magazine Newsstand Reviews

by JB66457a

I’ve used ZINIO for about 4 years and though it had some bugs, it was a decent way to read magazines on my iPad. At this point, I’d suggest looking elsewhere.

The most recent update deleted all the magazines off of my iPad and in fact ZINIO wouldn’t even start because it couldn’t connect to the Internet. (I guess this app product development teams never travel anywhere? Or don’t think their customers do...) Now it appears the magazines that I’ve paid for are stuck in “the cloud” forever unless I re-download all of them. Also it seems everything that I’ve ever looked at is in my library with no way to remove it.

Since I’ve already paid for some subscriptions I’ll probably use it until those run out, but after that, I don’t see any reason to continue. They’ve made it very clear people like me who download and read magazines are not their target market.

by BD35

this app always wakes up to ads for more magazines. Then an ugly pop-up occurs, trying to sell you even more of them. There is no option to avoid this. This could be forgivable if we weren’t paying them a bunch of money already for the magazines, but we are. There’s no option for it to wake up showing your library.

Then, when you finally are able to display your library, it’s an ugly white-background display with no option for customization.

Come on, this app, treat us better. And users of this app, stop giving ZINIO five stars and encouraging this arrogant behavior.

Edit: the developer explained below how to remove the most irritating pop-up ads (turn off notifications—but since when are ads euphemistically called notifications?). Unfortunately, this app still necessarily opens to the “home” page, which is entirely ads, and I still get pop-ups. So it’s still ugly and ad-infested—even when we tell it not to be. We pay more money to this app than to most apps, which remove ads when you pay them. this app is still treating us badly by forcing us to see ads simply upon opening ZINIO , and the alleged fix doesn’t work. So I’m changing my rating to one star.

By the way, I notice that the “most helpful reviews” are five stars and are years old, and my actually helpful recent review and others like it are way way down on the “helpful” list. I’m guessing that this app has invested heavily in “reviewers”. If only they’d invested in improving their product...

by RG

Can't say how many times I've donwloaded all my magazines, sit down on a plane, and they all show as in the cloud and have to be downloaded again. Some of the ones on my iPad at the moment I've downloaded a dozen times. They used to have something called a Zpass, which there is no way to really configure without great frustration via the web site or ZINIO . I usually have to chat with a support person to make changes to it. The interface is idiotic in that you view by year, instead of just showing everything. So every year from November to February I have to keep switching between 2 years to even see what I have on my iPad. This has been going on for years and it's inexcusable. Magazines should be an amazing experience on the iPad, but they actually make me long for the simple days of paper issues.

by Big Millsy

The idea of being able to keep previous issues of mags without taking up space is great. I have already subscribed to a couple of mags where I already have paper subs. Main complaint is those providers who think we would be silly enough to subscribe at the same cost as the paper sub. Does anyone actually pay $6.99 for a magazine which they can buy on the newsstand for, wait for it, $6.99?

Update 2018, things move on, whilst this app haven’t. Still ridiculous pricing for many titles, meantime Readly offers hundreds of magazines for a modest monthly subscription. Suspect that this app will go the same way as Blockbuster, great idea which failed to keep up with progress.

PS this app also do something which is very sneaky, presumably to reduce bad reviews. Click on the invitation to review, inside ZINIO , if you click on ‘great app’, you are taken to the review page. Click on ‘needs work ‘ and you are taken to an email page..Sneaky.

by Timmy!

This platform has been around for over 15 years, and was once the best for digital magazines. That hasn’t been true for awhile. If it weren’t for my large library and a few titles that are only available on this app I’d switch. Nearly every version has had trouble switching between portrait and landscape on iPad, often hopping to a completely unrelated spot in the issue and sometimes getting navigation in the table of contents so badly out of sync with what’s being shown that a force quit is required. Over time, my library of content I’ve already bought or subscribed to has become deeply buried. One of the benefits of subscribing to a magazine is the ability to enjoy a new issue without having to dig through the shelves to see when it’s available. Not here. I had to turn off notifications for this app entirely because they started pushing so many ads, eliminating the last smooth way to see when a new issue was available. The entire experience is obnoxious.

by RedRaven6

I really like everything about ZINIO except that my delete button is grayed out no matter how I try to troubleshoot.
Online searches have given me a couple of options on deleting unwanted magazines but nothing has worked.
The “Go to library> magazines; select magazine you wish to delete and tap on the 3 (verticals) dots to remove from library” doesn’t work because the only selections are Archive or Download- there is no option to delete there either.
Also, I logged off and logged in several times, hoping it may refresh my library. The last time I did this, some random Japanese magazine appeared in my library and of course, I am unable to delete it.
I am really disappointed. I’ll be looking for another platform for subscriptions.

by Rosenbergs.home

Have been using this app to read NG for 8 years now. Current version is reasonably good... but it ain’t great.

Recent update introduced long overdue feature. You can now read NG in ‘PDF-like’ format. In other words, no multimedia, no 3D layouts, just pages of content and pictures that you can flip and read. Just like a paper magazine. Very nice! Except for one thing... Every time you scroll to the next article, a popup floats in. ‘Good news! Text view is available!’ Text view is their 3D layout with videos and other fluff. By the time I finished reading that issue of NG, I was treated to the ‘good news’ announcement over 70(!) times.

Do you, guys, think 10 popups might be enough for an average reader to comprehend the ‘good news’? I know you worked hard on that ‘text view’ but still... We are not that dumb, really...

Another huge annoyance is a flood of crappy titles that this app shoves into your personal library. Previously you could choose the titles you want and save them in ‘Read’ layout. Not any more! ‘Library’ is the new ‘Read’ and every time I open it, I find dozens of helpful new titles from WebMD to VIV and ‘Car and Truck’.

Guys, pls stop it. Have your new titles in your marketplace. I’ll go there when I want to. But leave my library alone, don’t dump your junk there. It’s not cool.

by Johnnyc.in.tn

I like reading my subscriptions on my ipad, but it seems like it takes too long to update with new issues. For example, I have received my printed Sky & Telescope December 2018 issue about a week ago, but it has yet to update in my library on this app. Same for my Astronomy magazine.
Also, Sky & Telescope previously allowed download of pdf versions, which could be read without internet access. Although this app can be read offline, this access is limited to what has been recently accessed. This is a little inconvenient when you wish to refer to back issues.
Overall, this is a good first step, it just needs the ability to force subscription updates and allow more full issues to be stored on my reading device. Perhaps they could allow a way to select this on an issue by issue basis as long as local storage is sufficient.

by Phxrodent

Updated Nov 11, 2018: still wishing for the ability to view my account info in my app. Updated: March 12, 2016. I have no bugs to report or problems or issues I'd like to see addressed. The program/app works exactly as it should. Thanks for listening to and fixing all my issues, Zinionians. I won't give any app a 5 star rating so this is as good as it gets.
Update: Feb 2, 2015. All is well and I have no issues with this app! Thank u for listening to me! Update: Sept 19, 2014: I updated my iPad to iOS8 and now when I open my (one and only) magazine, ZINIO closes completely and brings me to my desktop! PLEASE FIX! I have always found ZINIO to be very easy to use. I take Soap Opera Digest. I would up the rating to a 5 star IF they would get a CUSTOMER SERVICE SUPPORT PHONE NUMBER so we could speak to them live. And, allow us to change our email addresses. Other than those 2 things, I really like ZINIO and would recommend it to you.

by Timfnb

I really enjoy using this app for reading magazines. I have several magazines that I receive this way: PC Magazine, iPhone Life, and Automobile.

PC Mag has just done a bang up job of delivering electronic content! It is an interactive magazine with ways to rotate images to get a 3D view of something, scroll up and down a page, links, etc. The scrolling allows you to read more about something if you are interested in it but you can easily skip those pages if they don't provide value to you. So, instead of having 4 pages in a row about something, you have 1 horizontal page and 3 more pages that you scroll vertically. That is very nice!

I like that this app shows when a magazine hasn't been downloaded. I would like to be able to tell if I have partially/completely read the magazine because I want to download the magazines on wi-fi but read them later. I don't have a way to mark them as just being downloaded and not read at all or just partially read.

by Qui Ja

How can you beat having your magazine subscriptions hang around for years? The only issue I have is as a knitter. I cannot print the pattern page I want to carry in my bag with my knitting!! I mean, if I carefully document the pattern and yarn and item I’m making—and that it is using a this app magazine—I might be able to find the pattern again if I lay my knitting down for a week. But usually I’m not that careful and don’t recall where that pattern came from. My question is, WHY can’t I print even a limited number of pages from the magazine I purchased?? If I bought a physical magazine I could put the mag in my knitting bag. I can’t sell one article...or at least I don’t know where. But I really have to limit my purchases to magazines I will only read. Give me the ability to print my patterns—labeled and documented as this app mag patterns if you want—and I’ll love you even more.

by Bill Dey

Ok, support solved my problem. It took much coordination between the magazine publisher and this app. I’m sure the issue was due to transition from a publisher app, the subscription itself, and transferring that subscription from publisher to this app. This shouldn’t have required the amount of personal effort to solve.

They seem to have decided to not support customers whose digital subscription was forcibly transferred from another digital subscription app. Their support seems totally dependent in information unavailable to the poor subscriber of previously good companies who mistakenly fell for their sales pitch. They admit on their website that some features they used to support no longer work, so you no longer have access to issues you have rightfully own and should have access to.

If you are considering getting a subscription from these people, find another way.!

by Poconnor

I have used this app on Windows for years and prefer digital content (it saves trees and is not bulky to carry around). ZINIO brings that desktop experience to the iPad. It works well. Navigating media content is simple. However, it would be nice if I could queue up multiple items for download. So far my experience is that only one download can take place at a time with no way to specify multiple (to queue up). When I start downloading one item and then select another, the first one stops and the more recent selection is downloaded.

I have noticed ZINIO has had numerous user interface changes. It is a little too early to comment on the recent updates. But, I am frustrated by the not-so user friendly interface. It is not intuitive. Plus, I seem to have lost the local copy of a number of items and have had to spend the time to redownload them. This occurred again when I moved to iOS 5. It is quite annoying.

I dropped my rating a point today as I have been having problems downloading some publications. this app has not been overly speedy to respond to my concerns. I have paid for the content and it is not available through this channel.

Many improvements in ZINIO have made it much more friendly. I have raised my rating to a 5 as it runs pretty smooth and has good navigation. Now, if you could allow for background downloads, it would round out ZINIO fully.

by SharonKN

What more is there to say about an app which allows you to carry your magazines around with you. I currently subscribe to 5 electronic magazines and they are all right there when I want them. No more lost magazines or looking all over the place for them. I always check to see if there is an electronic version when renewing a magazine. Is it perfect? No because all my magazine don't come in electronic form. Hopefully they will eventually.

There are a few enhancements I'd like to see. I'd like to be able to bookmark my position with a label and possible underline things. When you read a great article in an computer magazine it would be nice to find it some months later without reread several magazines and then having to reread the entire article for two lines. Until that happens, I still keep the paper copies that subscription provides me.

I currently use this app on my iPhone and iPad. It gets the most use on my iPad, but I have several smaller magazines which are perfect on my iPhone when it needed.

by Ian.Smith

This a review I thought I sent years ago but looks like it was stuck in ZINIO . My iPad zoom issues seem to have disappeared and most magazines accommodate my aging eyesight. I’ll submit my earlier complaint to show how much they have improved. Good job this app!

I love being able to carry a library of magazines on my iPad. And with my aging eyesight, I love being able to enlarge the text. But apparently these guys have perfect eyesight.

I was an early adopter and have complained for years about a major bug that, when you zoom in on a page, results in suddenly moving several pages backwards or frontwards through the magazine. It can take a half dozen attempts to zoom in before getting the desired result. happens all the time. I have complained about this for years, but I've gone from the original iPad to the Air without them having addressed the problem.

Worse, their more recent and imaginative presentation formats don't allow zooming in at all.

They may have perfect eyesight, but they are quite myopic about serving some segments of their market.

by MetrologyHead

I have been using this app software on PCs to read my magazines for a long time. The iOS apps are just an extension of a great way to read. I try not to subscribe any magazines in paper form. If they are available in this app, then I subscribe them. I can read magazines anywhere (most of my reading is on the planes) and I do not have to carry stacks of them. It also contributes to the environment. Plus, I can always look up a past issue very quickly from my iPad. ZINIO is for the most part very stable. When I have had crashes, I believe it is due to iPad memory issues than ZINIO itself. The current version has been very stable. I run it on my iPad Air2 iPad Mini2 and 4 and iPad Pro 12.9" and iPhone 6 Plus. I hope this app updates ZINIO to take advantage of the higher resolution. Great job!

by E.J. Werewolf

I love this app plain and simple. I can get magazines I love for good prices, across different platforms and devices. I love the interactive features that are exclusive to the this app editions of magazines. I am a collector, and if I had all the space I needed I would love to collect the hard copies of magazines, save them, reminisce with them. I can do all of that with this app except my 2 daughters both under the age of 3 can't destroy my this app magazines. They may spill water on my phone but that leaves my iPad etc....I would like to see the library expand to include more titles especially when it comes to sports. You can get the big all inclusive magazines like ESPN, but you can't get The Ring if you are a boxing fan or the Bowling Journal if you are a bowling fan etc... But I really enjoy the magazines I subscribe to on this app. It's great now and can only get better.

by Santa Fe Sue

this app is adequate as a place holder for the 5 or 6 subscriptions I currently have through ZINIO. In that respect this app is better than having paper pile up in my house and then have to be recycled.
However, for account questions and management, this app could not be any worse than it already is. Not only is is cumbersome or impossible to make account changes easily, but also if you DO manage, after MUCH difficulty, to connect with a so-called service rep (possible only online, not by phone), he or she has very limited skills to override any this app deficiencies. As just one example, I want to stop all my automatic sub renewals, but there is no easy, obvious way to do that. this app was GREAT when it started—intuitive and easy. Now, after perhaps an AI robot got involved, it is an impenetrable nightmare for account changes.

by Phy3joy

So far (1yr user) ZINIO seems to be very good. I like being able to delete issues of mags that I'm not currently reading so they aren't just sitting there taking up space on my iPad. However, recently I've been noticing a degrading of the print/type quality; such as being fuzzy or blurred. Most of the time I am able to get that to clear up by closing the magazine & then re-opening.

New review as of Dec 19,2016 - I love this app. It just works. Nothing complicated. If I can get a magazine that I like on this app then that's the way I will always subscribe. It saves paper/trees, gets rid of the clutter problem in my house (I save all my back issues), & can download several issues to read when traveling & may not have internet access. Also how slick is it to be able to carry around 5-10 magazines on one little lightweight iPad. This is just the BEST.

by Jamie Eight

I have had very few problems with this app. Sometimes there were magazines that I bought that didn't download, but support always resolved it quickly and efficiently, and were very knowledgable and upbeat. Any problems in the past are just that. The programmers have been awesome about keeping up with updates and technology, so kudos to them. I love reading magazines online. They are usually cheaper, but not always. My only complaint is that they don't offer some of the magazines I want, but I am getting them on other apps. I love the surprise sales and discounts which make the magazines an even better deal. I have access to all the French and English language magazines I could ever want. I love being able to keep magazines and not have to worry about clutter. This is a big win for me because I love magazines and books, and I like to keep them. Epic win.

by JoyWLHM

I have used this app for YEARS. This is the only way I would ever get my digital magazines. It is fast, easy to use and not cumbersome like the other digital option I had tried to use before. This is one app in which all your magazines are available. Also, all magazines can be viewed on iPhone or iPad which may not be the case with another app. I keep an iPhone 6 Plus in my bag and frequently use that to read, as I don't always want to carry my iPad. I never write reviews but have been puzzled as to why anyone would ever write a bad review about this app. It's absolutely wonderful and I have never had one problem in all the years I have been using it.