How It Works: digital edition Reviews

by AricP

This is the first item I ever requested a refund for (the subscription fee). I use Zinio and like that, so when this appeared in the Newsstand, it looked cool, so I got the 6 month subscription. That was a serious mistake. The magazine content is not optimized for the retina display, so the text and graphics are jagged when viewed close up. Next, the tap-to-zoom features don't work properly as on other apps. If you double tap to zoom in, it doesn't intelligently fit the area you are zooming in on to the display. Instead you get an arbitrarily large zoomed area that will only let you see part of what you zoomed in on. Further, there is no article text view mode like you get with Zinio. You have to try to read the articles while zoomed in with jagged text. It is like someone took a low-res screen shot of each page and you're trying to read the magazine while only being able to see small bits of what you are trying to read. Zinio lets you pull up and read an entire article using real text (think ePub) or you can read the article as originally laid out by the publisher.

Stay away from HowItWorks until they fix these problems.

by Will Long Jr

For all of those that would say, "this is a great magazine and how can you expect something for nothing?" I say, "Because they said so." In legal terms this is called Bait and Switch. They should give at least one sample to shut up the crowd. There is no excuse for greed. It is the principle of the thing that makes me not want to pay even though I can afford it.

All they did here, is get themselves a bad rating and lose potential subscriptions from people that would have purchased if they didn't feel they were hood winked. Insulting our intelligence, you 5 star raters, is not a smart move and doesn't help the company at all. How do we know you weren't paid to say its great? Obviously the company will do anything to make a buck so we can only assume those that rated it with 5 stars are on the take.

by Yodaman70

App takes over 5 min just let me view my purchased magazines. Horrible navigation to find the mag I am looking for. Canceled my subscription.

by Adam.123

I have to say this best magazine to read for curious mind. Got recommendation from friend, been buying paper copy from bookstore since then. But, my only complain is that it is not friendly to read on here, its basically presented as picture or images of text paper which is hard to read. This is are text, should not presented as images. I hope you know what i mean. I have economic magine subscripion, you can read text clearly, scroll down text, change font just like any text on pc. But this magazines just present there stuff as images, i suppose that fine read non pc or tablet, not smartphone.

by Whooguy

I don't understand all these negative reviews about being misleading that it's not free. Of course it's not free crazy people. It works just like all the other newsstand apps. You buy in app magazines. Charging for HowItWorks would be like saying that you have to pay for the newsstand on the street corner before you can buy a newspaper. The container is free. The content is not.

Anyway....on to my bug. The latest update fixes the crash on load but Restore Purchases and Restore Subscription doesn't work until you shutdown HowItWorks completely and restart it.

I'm on latest iOS with iPad 2.

by Alec Gee

Is it really free? If it said there was, "app purchase"; (NOT small print if it even says it at all).I might be inclined to purchase the virtual magazines/news papers with the money I DO have. But unfortunately I feel: tricked, taken advantage of and/or lied to because I waisted time downloading HowItWorks only to be disappoint due to the fact it was not free at all.

It is not the fact that it's not free, rather the fact be that it said "free" there for I get my hopes up and become disappointed.

I may sound really critical, I am, but its not because I'm selfish it's because this it's not right look at all the other pour reviews

by NaHChannel

How It Works is my favorite magazine for curious mind but it is very difficult to purchase its paper version in China and that is why I downloaded HowItWorks and subscribed for digital books. However, the experience for HowItWorks is too terrible that I cannot access the store anymore after I successfully subscribed. This magazine is fantastic and in order to enjoy it on iOS I sincerely hope you guys can improve HowItWorks.

by Star Krow

It truly scares me that some of these "one star" reviewers are eligible to vote for the next US President! What did you really think HowItWorks was for? Since you guys DON'T apparently know and didn't even bother to use your heads, I'll spoil the secret: IT'S A FRONT END FOR A SUBSCRIPTION! A 4 yr old or a monkey could have figured that out for themselves, when apparently most of you could not! HowItWorks is free to download so that you can buy the sub.

To all of you MORONS crying "rip off", go to Barnes & Noble, select any magazine and just tell the cashier that you're gonna take it home for free to see if ya like it. Post your results here instead of your reviews. It would waste all of our time a lot less.

See, was that really SOO hard to understand. Do the rest of us a favor and obstain next November? Thxx

by NYDJAK

HowItWorks works great. All the people giving bad reviews.. Read the description before you "waste your time downloading it." Really? It's free because these folks don't want to charge us for an app that lets us buy their magazines and/or subscriptions. How can they give away magazines for free? What's wrong with you guys? HowItWorks is for people that don't want to go to the bookstore to buy an issue bc it's easier to have on ur idevice. Get real people. Use ur brain b4 you give a great thing a bad reputation. By the way.. I don't in anyway whatsoever work for this company, I am just annoyed by stupid people.

by The Kolorowy

It really makes me wonder how stupid people are. HowItWorks is free but you right you have to pay for the subscription. Why would you expect a company to give you a free magazine? Learn to read it says in app purchase. Really people all of you that expect this to be free you are as stupid as box or rocks.

by Thasro

You people need to stop with all the negative reviews. All newsstand apps are FREE to download. That's why it's free. It's the same as an actual newsstand in person. You didn't pay for it to be there. But you can just take a newspaper or magazine for free!! Same concept here people. Give credit where it's due. I haven't had any issues with HowItWorks .

by Perfect Resonance

HowItWorks is really great and I usually never write reviews because it's a waste of time. I'm writing this because the other negative reviews probably stop people from learning and that's not cool. It cost 3 bucks a month for a 75pg informative piece of literature. You spend more on lunch in one day.. You can actually learn something informative in this rather than your little Debbie cakes.

by Paecelvoemisuc24

This was my first subscription for news stand and it's great, all these people rating it one star for not being free are stupid, all the news stand applications are free, that doesn't mean the subscriptions are free, they do this because there are many different ways of paying, you can buy a single magazine or 6 months or 1 year. So don't pay mind to the negative reviews. From an experienced apple user and magazine lover this is great =D

by Alien Co-pilot

I read on here that a lot of people are upset that they have to pay for a subscription "but HowItWorks was supposed to be free!" Yeah, HowItWorks is free. The subscription isn't. No where on the internet are these kinds of magazines simply free. They all charge a subscription fee. If you go this way you're actually getting a great deal compared to the 10 bucks an issue on the stand.

by ThisApp777

I saw all these bad reviews because the magazine issues aren't free. But no magazines are on here.
Some give a sample, but it seems they have chosen to select the magazine you are interested in, and you can preview every page! At first I was disappointed, but then I realized its kind of nice even though it's a smaller scale.
So you be the judge if you like the issue, just like flipping through pages in the store before you buy.

by Fred2352

It's hard to get a good idea of the good apps and bad when the only criteria that you people put on apps is if it's free or not. It's a magazine it's gonna cost something. And why does the digital have to cost less. It takes more work putting together an interactive digital mag than one set for print. I want to look at reviews and get an idea about the content and usability of an app not that everyone is so broke they can't afford a 3 dollar magazine.

by Mariexotoni

I'm confused as to why people are giving this magazine a bad review if they didn't even read it. You couldn't have actually thought itd be free?? How much time did you really waste downloading HowItWorks?

App is great and these people are silly. Highly recommend. It's great - not piling up magazines, info is good. These subscriptions are really good for the iPad - don't have to zoom =]

Don't listen to the bad reviews! These people don't know what they're talking about. Act like they got jipped =p so silly

by Science-Geek

We can’t get the paper edition here in the states for anything resembling a reasonable cost, and compared to import rates, this ipad edition is a steal! I bought the year-long subscription and read each issue cover to cover. How It Works is the ultimate brain-feed for folks who love to learn about science. It’s extremely well written, and quite diverse in its range of topics. If you like Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, etc.; you’ll probably dig this. Download a "preview" before you buy a subscription if you’re not sure.

by Garda

I'm only writing this review in response to the idiotic 1-star review below. Magazines are on the iPad. Like their printed counterpart, they require money to either purchase 1 issue. Or offer "Subscriptions" that save loyal readers money. The "free" aspect of this service is allowing you to view which magazines are available for download. Or experience a demonstration of the magazine before you spend time and money on it.

This is not deceitful. How It Works is a cool magazine and isa good port to a new medium. In the future, keep the reviews about the specific product, not the service that manages that product.

by TS1AWD

I didn't know this magazine existed until finding it here in Newsstand. I purchased one issue to try it out and was hooked from there!

I find it funny that people will negatively rate HowItWorks as a consequence of their own fault for not reading the terms. HowItWorks is free to search their magazine database, it states very clearly that past and current issues are available for PURCHASE within HowItWorks . Nowhere it states that you get the magazine for free. Idiots.