Flipster – Digital Magazines Reviews

by Girl_style

My library recently switched over to this magazine service from our previous one. The selection is now much more limited but I know thats not the apps fault.

What is the apps fault is the horrible download speed & enforced checkout time limit. I’ve had 6 magazine issues attempting to download for 3 days now with no progress. They all just say “waiting”. I cancelled & tried again but am back at the same frustrating spot as before.

IF you’re able to get them downloaded be prepared for a 1 week checkout period before they’re marked as “expired” forcing you to delete. If you still want to read it you have to start the infuriating download attempt all over.

by JRizzzle11

The text/images are extremely compressed and pixelated, which greatly diminishes the viewing experience. The whole point of Flipster is to be a magazine reader, when I read a paper magazine the text/images are crisp and clear. So essentially this application is failing at it sole purpose to most likely conserve download bandwidth.

Provide uncompressed higher resolution versions of the magazines as an option and add font size adjustability and then Flipster will be great. Until then it’s 1 star.

by Bngwtr

I’ve never seen an app that doesn’t allow you to increase text size and Flipster has no options for changing margins or text. Navigating a magazine is ridiculously clunky: you flip through the PDF, find your article, switch to text mode to read it, switch back to PDF mode to find another article, etc. The navigation menu helps a little bit but Flipster frequently crashes when I try to click out of it.

by Love Them Zombies

Flipster used to work great. It had a large number of magazines to download. Now I’m unable to download anything including magazines I was able to download previously. Also, it would be nice to see what issues you have already read.

by J. William Drew

What good is the reader view if it’s too small to read and you can’t make any adjustments?

In the classic view, the image of the page is merely novelty—zoom in to actually read the page and the words are blurry.

Either way you slice it, articles are unreadable.

I’ll gladly give 5 stars once the reader view has been updated. Like the Kindle app, we need to have a few fonts to choose from, margin sizes to choose from, line spacing to choose from, and of course, text size.

A night mode would be great as well.

by Scotia Smitty

Please support dynamic type.

I am 41 with pretty decent eyesite and still the text view font sizing is way to small. I can’t imagine what this is like for older users. It’s kind of incomprehensible that accessibility wasn’t considered when you created the text view feature.

by WAlicia

Flipster really needs work every time I try to download magazine it takes forever. And I also don’t understand why they give you such a short amount of time to be able to read the magazines. There also not a large selection.

by Balletmom87

This service is new to my library, so I know there will be more variety available as time goes. However I don’t get the one week checkout thing! Since there’s no waiting for an issue, and apparently no limit to how many people can borrow an issue at the same time, why would there be a time limit. Magazines aren’t necessarily time sensitive, so I tend to put them on my shelf and get back to them later. Then feel I have to rush through or check them out again. Just silly.

by Satisfied Interval User

Please improve the reader functionality as highlighted in reviews/comments by other users. Thanks!

by Seanach

Accessing titles is relatively easy, but there’s no way to maintain a personal list of magazines you’re interested in. A bigger issue is the lack of control over text size and font, making Flipster a strain for those of us with impaired vision.

by P-O-D

I like this when it works, but lately won’t fully open. Just crashes. Please fix. Restart of iPad doesn’t fix it.

by Vgoel9

Please increase usability by allowing the
1. Changing of font sizes in text view,
2. Choice of single page or dual page view in landscape mode,
3. Usability of reading experience in portrait mode without having to choose text view.
The Kindle app should be your guide.
Thank you.

by Mae-Anne

The magazines are incredibly slow to download. I’ve been stuck at 0% downloaded for the last 15 minutes. Please fix this bug. Thank you!

by AlchemicKnowledge

It’s not the most polished application but the few magazines I do read were able to download fine. Overall very happy that this application works with my library

by Platero Yang

Flipster is wonderful. Now I can read tons of magazines at home.

One suggestion: the text size is way too small for me and it seems there’s no way to change text size in “Text view”.

by Staceywalk

I like that my library offers this. One of the things I must have is ability to customize my font size. In text view there is no option. The text in text view is way too small for my old eyes.

Also when I use the table of contents to navigate to articles, it needs to remember where I was and not jump all the way back to the top of the table of contents.

I would also like the ability to share articles with others via Facebook, message, or email.

by Bleurrrrrggg

Would love to see an issue’s table of contents without having to download the entire issue first.

by Moshi-Moshii

Took a while to figure out but love the options of magazines. Open and flip and expand pages. Cool!

by Loyal Balla-er

In latest version it finally works perfectly for my iPhone, and it is an incredible resource for reading magazines through my libraries. I am impressed by the ease and speed with which I just downloaded my five favorite magazines through Flipster .

by Kiss Method

Great selection and able to access my selection for days!!

by Themartinme

Flipster is horribly designed, it lack many common features and look aesthetically unpleasant. It is also slow.

by Highlanddeb

Very disappointing. Not much in variety. I don’t know who is selecting the magazine but they need to widen their scope.

by Snushtae

The log in page is landing on an error page. Not being able to sign in.

by Nutscracker25

Flipster keeps saying the login info is incorrect with no options to enter the login info. Junk!

by Mrxindc

Went thru all the trouble to setup account and checkout a magazine and it’s just a blank screen. Wondering now if my info has been stolen

by CarlFo

My girlfriend and I both use Flipster through the same library and she has a much larger assortment of magazines, specifically the ones I downloaded Flipster to read.

by Whispurrs

Every time it decides I need to log back, it’s horribly frustrating trying to log in. It repeatedly tells me that my login has to be reauthorized, and once I do log in to my library (through the browser) and try to connect back to Flipster (with the open in app option), it still tells me my info is wrong or needs to be authorized. Previously I have been able to find the right sequence of steps to log in but today none of those steps are working. For that month or two that it holds my login, Flipster does work so I’ll give it two stars for that. Docking it 3 because it’s incredibly horrible to log in to. I wish my library would go to RBdigital or the old Overdrive Nook

by Dolores’ 2nd Account

For all the people who clicked the "Open in App" icon and got nothing - yes, I had the same issue. Here's how I got Flipster to work: Select the magazine, click on the 3 horizontal bars on the left to open the menu, then select Open in App. A pop up will ask if you want to open in this app, select Open and the title will download.

Selection is based on what your library has to offer, and it doesn't seem to store your library card so you'll have to enter that number over and over again as far as I can tell. Yes, it's a little clunky and needs some work, but I think it's a decent app that will hopefully get better.

by Dallascw

Downloaded this iOS app for my iPhone and iPad but a search on my iMac apps and could not locate one. I really like reading my magazines on a 27 inch screen. Please make it available

by ~Ax

I’m able to add my library account, conveniently browse and download available issues, read them using the graphical layout or the text-based reader mode. For that functionality alone, this is one of my favorite apps on my phone - this is how reading is supposed to be - immersive, with purpose and thought, and in depth rather than skimming headlines. That’s what I’m able to do effortlessly, because Flipster enables me to read articles from The Atlantic, or the New Yorker, or whatever magazine I’ve downloaded - and it presents the content beautifully just as the magazine laid it out and there are no flashing ads vying for my attention. Thank you for a wonderful app!

What’s needs improvement:

1. The text-based reader mode: currently it only shows text in Arial (or something similar) - font size, font family, background, brightness - none of this can be customized. It’s really critical to improve this. When reading full articles, font readability matters a lot! Fonts with a serif are so much more readable at small screen sizes (or if people feel differently, let them choose their font). Background and brightness can make such a big difference when it comes to eye strain. Adding some configurable options here will turn a good app into a great one!

2. Font scaling and image scaling in graphical view. When zooming in to some pages, the text and images can get blurry quite quickly. I have seen magazine reader apps that do a great job of zooming, and it would be great to get the same experience here. If you have to pick one thing to work on though, I suggest the text reader improvements are a much higher priority.

I do hope you’ll consider my feedback and I promise those 4-stars will turn into 5 as soon as we get some font configuration options. Thank you for a very nice app in the meantime.

by Hypercane123

Update: back to 5 stars thanks to devs bringing back full screen mode. Would be better without the icon to exit full screen being constantly on screen, devs can you find a solution without the icon always there?

Update: changing from 5 stars to 3 after they removed full screen mode. Please get rid of those top and bottom panels and let me just read magazine full screen without visual distractions.

I don't understand all the negative reviews. I saw a magazine via my library website and was able to view it in web browser. From there I saw option to view it in Flipster and it opened it perfectly. On iPad I was viewing two pages at a time in landscape orientation. I tried rotating screen to portrait and saw full screen one page of magazine. Looks fantastic.

by ThatSteveWGuy

Great update! Finding your library, signing in, searching and selecting magazines all now take place in Flipster . No more going to your library's website to login and search. That is so much more convenient. The interface is clean and easy to use, the image quality is very good, and Flipster runs well on my old 3rd gen iPad. This is still a service that your library has to subscribe to, but it's a great app if your library does subscribe to it. One note: if you don't have a lot of free space, delete magazines when you are done reading them. They download to your device and can take up a fair amount of space.

by PaulieGo

Flipster is working for me as far as stability goes and while I agree with the many suggestions for improvement offered by other people's reviews, let's acknowledge what Flipster actually does: provides free access to current-issue, excellent magazines that otherwise cost good money. My library (Brooklyn NY) offers nearly 120 titles. This is a gift. I now get to flip through magazines like Popular Science and Photography that I've been interested in but not enough to actually subscribe (as I already have too many paper subscriptions). Of all the terrible uses of our tax dollars, this is not one of them.