Smithsonian Magazine Reviews

The newly updated version of SmithsonianMagazine is distinctly inferior to the previous version. You can’t set bookmarks any more, so unless you read the entire magazine in one sitting, you have to remember where you were. Also, in articles where you should be able to see multiple pictures by touching the picture or swiping left or right, you can only see the initial picture. There’s no way to see the others.

Great content. Lousy app. Can’t keep track of what is your last viewed page in an issue. Very frustrating having to remember where you were.

Saw that Smithsonian now says you can read the print magazine on your iPad, if you subscribe, which I do.

Great, I thought, update and try it.

Not only did this not work, it nearly bricked my iPad. Finally got it working again after some effort.

THIS IS A DANGEROUS APP AND SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY DELETED BY EVERYONE!

I cannot understand why the overwhelming majority of magazines have useful apps where I can read my print subscription and Smithsonian has been a major fail in this area literally for years.

I doubt SmithsonianMagazine developers ever read these, but if you do: Shame on you. FIX THIS!!!!!!!!!M

Ever since SmithsonianMagazine was updated, the magazines I’ve been saving from January 2012 to today have all been erased. The pages are gone and if this doesn’t get fixed, I’ll look for something else that will.

Activating the digital edition may be a smooth process for those who have a more or less straight forward subscription to the print version of Smithsonian. But a subscription to the magazine is one of the benefits that come from being a "friend" of the Smithsonian. A "friend" is someone who has chosen to donate a minimum of $75 to the institution. This gets them a subscription along with several other benefits. If you are a "friend" activating a digital subscription will not be easy. It took several phone calls and emails in order to finally download an issue.

Having said that, I must commend the customer service people for their persistence in working through my problem. Having finally downloaded an issue it is, of course, excellent. The excellence of the magazine is well known to subscribers. The digital issue is high quality, easy to navigate, downloads in a reasonable amount of time and seems to faster than magazine that I have subscribed to through Zinio.

I do wish that Smithsonian would smooth out the activation process for "friends." But other than that I think this is an great app.

If you are thinking that you are going to be green purchasing the digital subscription, think again! The amount of time and energy I have put in talking to customer service of both iTunes and the Smithsonian developer could worth a year of carbon foot print of the subscription. They tossed me like soccer ball for the problem that is clearly on both side. I would like to remind you both Apple and Smithsonian Developer that I am an subscriber to the Smithsonian magazine as a Apple User. You guys need to work together to solve this issue together instead telling me the issue is not on your end. It is on both ends! If one side is more willing to resolve the issue by contacting the other side, this issue would be resolved within 30 min. Apple seems to have the issue thinking if they are the most elite tech company they give the world's least elite customer service to its customers. Let me clarify that statement by no mean the customer service personnel is rude or unhelpful! I am more than grateful for their help. It's the management how customer service is delivered. If I spend $500 for a screen that types, I should NOT have to spend all morning on the phone trying to tell them my magazine subscription that I bought with my money did not work please do something.

Update 2: I'm putting this back down to one star. Clearly they have no plans to fix this useless app. It's still clunky, full of useless pages, will sign me out in the middle of an excruciatingly long download making me sign back in and start the download from the beginning, and unless my iPad is plugged in it will DRAIN while the issues are downloading, as SmithsonianMagazine MUST be open. Worst magazine app ever.

Update: I can finally download issues, but I have to keep SmithsonianMagazine open the entire time, and it takes up to 45 minutes even though the file size isn't that big. When you click Download, you still get taken to a page for ads for some reason, and then have to click Download All. It's by far the clunkiest magazine app I've used.

Original review: All of a sudden I cannot download issues. The blue progress bar will get about halfway, then pause, and when I click to download again it goes back to the beginning, it doesn't pick up the download from where it left off. So, I can't get any issues. I've tried logging out and back in, deleted and reinstalled SmithsonianMagazine . Nothing has worked, and there's no option within SmithsonianMagazine to send comments to the developers. It's a great magazine, but SmithsonianMagazine is useless.

No one seems to know how SmithsonianMagazine works. Neither Smithsonian or iTunes have any idea how to support this as an iTunes subscription.
I was very patient and called Smithsonian first (from the number listed in the apop FAQ). They were a little rude and very quick to point out that they "had no record of my purchase." What they meant was that iTunes doesn't share purchase verifications with them, so they couldn't do much, but they gave me some general help with SmithsonianMagazine . No avail.
Next I called iTunes support. After bouncing from one person to another, I was helped by a very polite young man who kindly informed me that he had no idea how to fix it. He escalated and second level told him to tell me to contact SmithsonianMagazine developer and also (since they probably knew that was going to get us nowhere fast) to offer me a refund. Bummer.
So now I guess I have to subscribe to the print edition to get the digital. At least, I hope that works, but I'll have the print ed as a backup. Somewhere there is a project manager who needs to get his act together. Seriously.

I always enjoyed the digital version of Smithsonian magazine. The text flowed smoothly and I loved swiping to reveal additional photos. I thought it was one of the best digital magazine experiences. The new update is awful. It is merely a snapshot of the magazine pages and is quite uncomfortable to read as you have to pinch and zoom to expand the page to the screen and photos are not contained with in the viewing window. Even worse, articles do not flow freely. If an article continues on a page farther on in the magazine, you have to physically go to that page. And SmithsonianMagazine does not remember where you left off reading. Please bring back the old interface. This is a quantum leap backward.

Can't even rate because I can't download it (but to submit it I had to give it something)... Why?! Guess what -- not a supported tablet by smithsonianmag!!! That's why the next button gets you nowhere! Really?! Hasn't iPad 3 been out for the better part of the year and now it's October 2012 and they're not supporting this platform yet (which I expected to do great wonders with the great photography in the mag). Geez... Email me when you catch up! Lord knows I get an email every day or so from Smithsonian mag, travel or store. This is one I actually want to receive...

I've been a print subscriber since January 1999! Loved the magazine, used to read cover to cover even the Secretary's letter (just not the book reviews). Haven't kept up with it since I fell in love with my kindle Christmas 2011 and was very excited to get back into reading via my husband's new iPad 3. Actually my print subscription ends in Dec 2012. If iPad3 content not supported by then maybe I'll just skip it for the first time in 13 years, catch up on back issues in print and be done...

My prior review is below and as you can see I had lots of problems after SmithsonianMagazine upgrade and upgrade to iOS 8. I decided to completely delete SmithsonianMagazine from my iPad. Then I reinstalled it. That "fixed" most of the problems. I now have an index of the magazine issues (though the month labels are not completely correct) and I can download prior issues without any problems. The download also goes much faster and smoother than the prior version. I still think it was poor form to require users to re-download their prior issues (hence the rating of 3 versus 4 or 5).

I updated SmithsonianMagazine when I upgraded to iOS 8. The update trashed my library and I can't download the issues. I logged out and logged back into subscription and that didn't help either. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE to the magazine until you see good ratings here!!!

Already a great magazine in print, the iPad app is a worthy and worthwhile ad/e-dition. Extra photos, video, and interactive features add somewhat to the print content, and the smooth and intuitive interface (for which there is a tutorial page within the magazine for first-timers) make the stories come alive as a visual delight. A must for every print version owner to get an enriched experience, to-go, for the cost of only a few minutes of download time.

I just subscribed to the print version of Smithsonian. When the first issue arrived I picked up my iPad to download SmithsonianMagazine and then was surprised to find that I could not view the digital edition without paying an additional fee. I'd like to meet the bureaucratic clown who made this decision and drag him or her screaming into the 21st century. I subscribe to many magazines including New Yorker, Business Week, Forbes, and Fortune. More often than not I glance at the expensive magazine and then download it to my iPad. It's more convenient, offers more features, and most importantly, it permits me to size the type that is more readable for my 75 year old eyes. I never pay an extra cent for this feature. Needless to say I will be a short term subscriber to Smithsonian. Ironically I've never paid a cent for admission to the many fine Smithsonian sites in the capital. Strange that it should suddenly get so greedy for this new technology.

Smithsonian Magazine devolves and turns to greed! This last update was not a mistake or an error in programming - it was intentional. It was a trick to remove us as digital subscribers, remove our current digital copies and force us to pay, pay, pay again! We can't even get the issues back that we paid for already!! Per Smithsonian Customer Support, "as of Oct. 1st print subscribers are No Longer Allowed a digital version without paying a separate - and extra price!!" Even though we paid, in advance, for digital included with our subscriptions!!
As subscribers we are no longer allowed to get our digital versions, We now have to PAY AGAIN for the same magazine WE ALREADY SUBSCRIBE TO???? So what is the point of using this rip off app?
I have been subscribing to Smithsonian Magazine for years and this is an insult..... Change it back!

One of the things I liked about the Smithsonian app prior to this update was that print subscribers received the electronic edition as well. It was one of the reasons we continued to get the magazine. With this update they removed the e-edition from the subscription without prior notification to current subscribers. I have 18 months left on my subscription and I just got ripped off. If they had done this at the end of the subscription I would not feel this way.

I called the magazine and was told that I was out of luck. Since I was induced to renew with the promise of e-edition access, I canceled my subscription and urge anyone else who is upset by this to do the same. I'm no lawyer - but wouldn't this be fraud in the inducement if you relied on this access when you paid for the subscription?

What has be done to long time subscribers is beyond shameful! When I renewed my subscription, it was with the understanding that I would have access to electronic version as well as the print version. But, NO, suddenly, without warning, what’s been true for over 3 years is no longer so! Poof! Access to an electronic copy of the magazine is gone! I enjoyed the little animations that came with the electronic version on my devices but not so much I’m willing to pay for it TWICE! Smithsonian you ought to be ashamed for this low down bait and switch! Judging from the other reviews I see here, you have ticked off a lot of long time customers- count me in that number of long time subscribers (more than 15 years) that you have alienated to the point that they are cancelling their subscriptions! Bye-bye!! 👎🏽😠

Oct 2015 Update: The content download complaint from my original review was fixed — or at least made acceptable — until the latest release. There is no longer any way to log in. Smithsonian members used to get access to the digital version of the magazine as part of their membership. That apparently is no longer the case. I will not pay for an additional subscription to read the magazine on my iPad when I already have hard copy. I removed SmithsonianMagazine from my devices.

—— original review ——

This used to be my favorite magazine app. Reading on the iPad was better than reading the physical magazine. That is no longer the case.

It is next to impossible to download content. SmithsonianMagazine can somehow get the promo material to the iPad, but not the desired content. It is also highly annoying that even when logged in I see promos that tell me I can subscribe. It should know I'm already subscribed.

Back to the hard copy. I've been trying for 3 or 4 nights to get the current issue. I give up.

The developers got the add / promo delivery done and then apparently stopped developing.

I have been reading the magazine for decades and usually find the subject matter of the article’s interesting and informative. The writing is always top notch.

The ap, however, is pretty minimal. You see pretty much a copy of the printed version, in portrait mode only. My complaint is you get no control over the page presentation - no scaling or other controls are offered. Fine for those with 20-20 vision. The ap doesn’t take any advantage of the digital medium.

I originally had a one yr subscr to the print version. After six months I called the cust svc helpline (listed in the magazine)when I got my new ipad2. They helped me set up the subsc app on my iPad. It is viewed via the apple newstand app. This particular update for specific issues worked fine for me. Not sure what the problem is for other subscribers. Am considering renewing this subsc now because the iPad version is so beautiful. And even though I am not a current subscriber I can still access all my back issues.

I have iPod 2 with latest iOS. I just downloaded Smithsonian Magazine app. Open in newsstand and open Smithsonian. Click on download. It opens new screen that shows icon and says "ADS" click on it and it downloads magazine. Open magazine and it navigates same as other magazines I have in Newsstand. No problem. Not sure what tablet others are using or why they are having problems. The label of ADS is u fortunate on Smithsonian's part...

I just read the other reviews for the Smithsonian digital magazine upgrade, and I really have nothing to add. The other reviewers are correct, this upgrade is terrible. The previous version was user-friendly and worked well. This version is several steps back from the previous version techlology-wise. The bookmark feature does not work, I have to zoom in and scroll up and down to read a page, it's a snapshot of the magazine pages. It is an extremely frustrating experience to use SmithsonianMagazine. Why would the developers do this? Please bring back the old format, or work on an improvement! I enjoy the content of the magazine and have subscribed for many years. I do not want to cancel my subscription or switch back to the print version. This is very, very disappointing.

I don't know what these other folks are talking about. I quite easily downloaded SmithsonianMagazine , created an account with my membership number and started downloading the November and December issues. NO PROBLEM -- I have an iPad 2. The articles look fine. I am hoping to subscribe electronically ONLY when my paper subscription runs out.