JWAT
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Zinio version - suboptimal quality
Stephen Mejias
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Hi JW. While I'm happy to hear you've been a loyal subscriber -- thank you -- I'm sorry you're disappointed with the Zinio edition. I have very little experience with the iPad app, but when I did play around with it, I thought it looked good and served the magazine well. Unfortunately, I can't respond directly to your concerns about the search function because I just don't have enough experience with the iPad app, and I don't have access to an iPad right now.

(The search function works very well in the basic Zinio edition.)

However, I can say that, for copyright reasons, the Zinio edition must be identical to the print magazine, and that tends to dictate the size of the font and overall look. All of the URLs that are listed in the print magazine are active in the Zinio edition, but you won't find additional video or interactive content.

JWAT
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Hi Stephen, thanks for your response. You should take another look at this in my honest opinion. If you take the Zinio version on the iPad and look at the text in Landscape mode the font is far too small and not crisp (my eyes are pretty much perfect). Pictures render fine overall. In Portrait mode the font is readable but again slightly out of focus. Annoying because you basically cannot read it in comfort without zooming in which as stated before I personally do not like but I accept that others may have a different opinion.

If the Stereophile contract and copyright right laws prevent you from innovating it's time to seek a new bunch of corporate lawyers, my friends :-). Seriously though, I am not sure a magazine like Stereophile can afford to miss the digital boat due to the fact that your legal framework does not allow it.

What would be interesting is to do a reader survey about whether people are willing to pay more and if so how much for a state-of-the-art iPad/tablet version. The Economist charges about 100 USD I believe. Personally I would be happy to pay much more for the print version which value per dollar scale is off the charts imo and begs the question whether you guys are maximizing your business model. Same goes for the digital version.

Having a really good iPad app should provide value for the company and the reader. All sorts of business models are possible here and your statements lead me to believe that Stereophile does not seem to be further down the road than simply sending a pdf to Zinio (I do not know what you do, but that is what it looks like to a print novice).

Please consider this constructive criticism from a fan.

Kind regards
Joel

deckeda
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"for copyright reasons, the Zinio edition must be identical to the print magazine, and that tends to dictate the size of the font and overall look."

Stephen,

Plenty of other publications have iPhone/iPad apps that present their content in ways that do not mirror their print version. Point being, they too would be copyrighted.

Love the iPad, but it's not perfect. Screen resolution could be higher. This makes a lot of text a wee bit indistinct, to be charitable. My iPhone 4 has spoiled me with its Insanely Great® 326 ppi. "Retina," as Apple says, indeed.

My fix for Stereophile-on-iPad: for pages with simple pagination, a simple double-tap of the screen should zoom in to where the line of text grows as big as it can get while still seeing the entire line. For everything else, there's pinch-and-zoom, two-finger scrolling around the page. It is what it is.

JWAT wants what we all want: presentation tailored for the device. That the iPad already does pretty darn well with content presented "like a magazine" is to its credit, but that doesn't mean it's ideal.

Stephen Mejias
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Quote:
Plenty of other publications have iPhone/iPad apps that present their content in ways that do not mirror their print version. Point being, they too would be copyrighted.
Maybe, but to do this properly and legally requires resources -- money, staff -- that we don't have, unfortunately. Good for the magazines that can do it.

I don't want to sound like I'm whining or complaining, but I am actually consistently amazed by what we achieve each month (each day, in fact) with an editorial staff of just four.

igy
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I'm also a subscriber of the digital edition using my desktop pc for reading and I also have to tell that I'm very disappointed by the quality of Zinio Reader. The UI is just pain to use, the quality of fonts is everything but comfortably readable unless I zoom in, but in this case I'm stuck with the most unintuitive controls I can imagine.

david-p
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This big problem for me with Zinio is that they never bother to send a reminder that my subscription is about to expire. Eventually, I realise that I havent had a copy of Stereophiole for a while and look into it.

This is not good enough!

David

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