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Is Zinio worth it?

L

lsquare

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 30, 2010
706
69
Kindle for iPad supposedly support magazines, but I haven't started using it yet. I'm already reading magazines on my iPad thanks to the iPad edition being available. Yet, some magazines aren't available on Apple's platform. I guess this is where Zinio comes in handy, but it's another app. How many of you are using multiple apps to read your magazines? Is Zinio for iPad worth it?

If the same magazines was available for both the iPad and Zinio, which one will you go with?
 
Zinio is somewhat a PITA but in most cases you do not need to buy subscriptions from Zinio. I've never bought a single one from them. It's very easy to find "complementary" paper version subscriptions online -- Fatwallet type sites frequently post stuff. Also many of the magazine consolidators have cut-rate prices on a lot of magazine. $2.99-$4.99 subscriptions for monthlies are quite common.

When you get your first paper issue contact the publisher -- most have an online site for this -- and request your sub to be changed from paper to digital. Almost all publishers use Zinio.

Some magazines -- I'm thinking of Motor Trend in particular -- even give you a digital sub w/ the paper one. However, their digital sub has a stand alone app, but it does appear in the iPad's Magazine Rack too.
 
Zinio is nice if you want a single place to go for all of your subscriptions. However, as magazines get their own apps in Newsstand, I will be migrating over to their individual apps. They sometimes offer more interaction than the basic PDF like Zinio version. Sound + Vision and national Geographic are two examples of this if I remember correctly.

The biggest downside, IMO, is that you cannot migrate past issues from the Zinio catalog to their own stand alone apps. :(
 
Chupa Chupa said:
Zinio is somewhat a PITA but in most cases you do not need to buy subscriptions from Zinio. I've never bought a single one from them. It's very easy to find "complementary" paper version subscriptions online -- Fatwallet type sites frequently post stuff. Also many of the magazine consolidators have cut-rate prices on a lot of magazine. $2.99-$4.99 subscriptions for monthlies are quite common.

When you get your first paper issue contact the publisher -- most have an online site for this -- and request your sub to be changed from paper to digital. Almost all publishers use Zinio.

Some magazines -- I'm thinking of Motor Trend in particular -- even give you a digital sub w/ the paper one. However, their digital sub has a stand alone app, but it does appear in the iPad's Magazine Rack too.
Click to expand...

You are right and I know Motor Trend have an iTunes app available. I'm pretty sure all Motor Trend subscribers get the digital version for free, but isn't that restricted to the iTunes app? Can I request the digital edition to be downloaded for either Zinio or the Kindle App? If so, how do I make that request?
 
lsquare said:
You are right and I know Motor Trend have an iTunes app available. I'm pretty sure all Motor Trend subscribers get the digital version for free, but isn't that restricted to the iTunes app? Can I request the digital edition to be downloaded for either Zinio or the Kindle App? If so, how do I make that request?
Click to expand...

If you go to the Motor Trend site and find the "subscriber services" link...usually at the bottom of the pages. Most mags make you hunt and peck to find it. Log in (you'll need the address label on the mag b/c that is where your acct is noted) and then just email customer service and ask if you can transfer your paper sub to digital. I've never been turned down yet. I never asked for it to come on Zinio, it just does.
 
I like magazines in zinio better than the apps, for instance, I like popular science in zinio over the popsci+ app. Sure it might have neat features, but each issue is much larger and I like to keep all my issues in my library, and like the feeling of reading an old school magazine not an app.

So yeah, I actually like zinio better.
 
I like Zinio because their subscriptions are really cheap.

They just added retina support for their app. Looks great.

One advantage of newstand though is that it can download the new issues in the background. With Zinio you have to manually download them.
 
I lioke Zinio because I don't end up with a stack of magazines collecting dust and I can bookmark the one or two items in the mag that I want to reference later.

On a side note, stay away from the "Apple Magazine". What a piece of crap. 90% of it is a re-hash of articles that have been on the web for a week and then they have [ages devoted to the top 20 apps (free and paid) - something everyone can access through iTunes for free. They also have movie and music reviews on items that are new to iTunes. I'm not sure what that has to do with Apple...maybe some will appreciate it but it doesn't interest me in the least.
 
I prefer Zinio to real magazines, however the app itself can take up quite a bit of space once you start bringing in the magazines.

A little while back I received an email from Zinio saying something about being sorry for problems and here is a $15 redemption code. I didn't remember complaining about anything, but the code worked! lol, I managed to get 3 magazine subscriptions out of it, lol.
 
KoukiFC3S said:
I like Zinio because their subscriptions are really cheap.

They just added retina support for their app. Looks great.

One advantage of newstand though is that it can download the new issues in the background. With Zinio you have to manually download them.
Click to expand...

I agree--have a few auto magazine subscriptions and the price for annual subscriptions is generally equal to or less than print prices, cheap than the app subscription and I don't have a stack of magazines at the house. Granted, they don't have the extra interactive content (which makes the issue size significantly larger) but I found I personally don't use/miss it.

One correction to KoukiFC3S's post--you can set up Zinio to automatically download issues over wifi.
 
Zinio magazines are significantly smaller in size than the magazine apps. However, if you have a print subscription that allows for complimentary digital access on the iPad, Zinio doesn't allow that.
 
KoukiFC3S said:
I like Zinio because their subscriptions are really cheap.

They just added retina support for their app. Looks great.

One advantage of newstand though is that it can download the new issues in the background. With Zinio you have to manually download them.
Click to expand...

I think they added some kind of auto-download feature. I see it in the app.

BTW, I like Zino. I tried 2 magazines in the Apple Newstand and then went back to using Zinio. I like it better. Used to be a lot cheaper than Apple. Not sure if that's still so.
 
KoukiFC3S said:
I like Zinio because their subscriptions are really cheap.

They just added retina support for their app. Looks great.

One advantage of newstand though is that it can download the new issues in the background. With Zinio you have to manually download them.
Click to expand...


Zinio will download issues in the background as long as you have the app open in your multitasking tray. It was a new feature implemented a few updates ago.
 
I currently have 70 magazines downloaded taking up 2.2Gb, this is about 32MB per magazine which is not bad at all.

I also found the subscription price competitive and I can download magazines to my Android and PC.

The magazines lack interactivity, but I'm mainly reading for the stories and editorials any way.
 
zinio looks great with the retina upgrade. But they really need to do something on their optimizing. National Geographics takes ages to build up one page. It's as if nothing is precached...
 
I love Zinio, looks great on Retina iPad, and you can't beat the prices. I've got around a half dozen subscriptions, no problems at all.

Universal app for iPhone available as well. And a Mac app, too. Cannot recommend it more.
 
The 30mb per issue file size (when newsstand issues tend to be 300mb) is starting to show on the retina display.
 
Sylon said:
Zinio will download issues in the background as long as you have the app open in your multitasking tray. It was a new feature implemented a few updates ago.
Click to expand...

But Zinio has to be launched first right? I think newstand will check for new downloads automatically, even if you havent used it for a while.

I still like Zinio more over newstand, but it's nice to have The Daily automatically download every morning. :)
 
ArztMac said:
I love Zinio, looks great on Retina iPad, and you can't beat the prices. I've got around a half dozen subscriptions, no problems at all.

Universal app for iPhone available as well. And a Mac app, too. Cannot recommend it more.
Click to expand...

Since Zinio supports the Retina Display, are the magazines scaled up to look good at that resolution as well? Or the magazines were already scanned at high resolution to begin with?
 
lsquare said:
Since Zinio supports the Retina Display, are the magazines scaled up to look good at that resolution as well? Or the magazines were already scanned at high resolution to begin with?
Click to expand...

I don't know to be honest. I have a few magazine PDFs (20-50MB) I got from other (torrent) sites and they all look horrible on the new iPad. But Zinio magazines all look terrific (MacWorld, Shutterbug, PopularPhotography, NationalGeographic). Even if you don't zoom in, you cannot tell the pixel. Also, images look pretty good as well. I think the file size for an average magazine on Zinio is around 200-300 MB, so you cannot simply drop 2 years worth of issues of every subscription on your iPad without running out of space quickly. So you have to pick and choose. That's alright with me, as I am usually only interested in the most recent 1-2 issues anyway...

Whatever Zinio did, they did it right. And for the right price (many subscriptions are 80% off the real-life newsstand price).
 
KoukiFC3S said:
But Zinio has to be launched first right? I think newstand will check for new downloads automatically, even if you havent used it for a while.
Click to expand...

I get an email from my subscribed magazines when there is a new issue available, so it not a big deal for me. But I'd like Zinio to have an option to auto download magazines when I open the app.
 
I have about 12 magazine subscriptions on Zinio that I read on my MacPro, MacBook pro and iPad. I've used Zinio for over a year. I also have a Kindle.

I like Zinio because I like all my mags in one place (as opposed to using different publishers' websites or readers) and also I like their selection of magazines better than what Kindle offers.

I travel a lot and usually end up accumulating several unread magazines and magazine articles as well as other old issues and articles that I want to keep and read again later. In other words, I'm not the type of reader that reads the magazine the day it arrives and then trashes it when it's a month old. Like in the real world, I like to have a stack of interesting reading to go to when I have some spare time or when I can't sleep.

So ..... I have reoccurring frustrations with Zinio. Every few months the files get corrupted or whatever and the program freezes and refuses to work. Then I have to trash everything and re-download the software and also redownload all my magazines (past issues). With over a year's worth of 12 subscriptions the download size continues to increase.

BTW ... I'm using OSX 10.6.8 . I'm not using Lion. All my Mac's are less than 18 months old ... lot's of RAM and HD space.

Zinio's short fix for a program freeze is to simply trash Adobe Air and reload a fresh version (Adobe Air). However this has never worked for me and I instead must trash the Zinio program from my computer as well as all the pref files and the cache files (including the downloaded mags). I don't always have access to fast internet and this process can be a major hassle, especially when for instance I'm traveling or planning a trip and want to read that travel article I saw two months ago. I've had to do this for both my MacPro and MacBook Pro several times, Zinio has done this freeze on the MacBook Pro twice this month already ... so far Zinio on the iPad has been OK but I also don't use it so much.

I don't know if these problems are related to Adobe flash. Perhaps.

I also wish that Zinio would allow users to simply download the mags, in PDF format or whatever .... so when their reader program freezes, we wouldn't have to download the entire library again again and again. I realize that with this solution, the piracy issues raises it's head and so probably it will never happen.
 
To follow-up my previous post .....

When the Zinio program crashes on one of my Macs, I've also tried various hacks such as .... copying the cache files from one Mac to another, in hopes that this may be an alternative to downloading the entire library again.

So far I've not been successful in using this method of restoring my library. When I do this, the magazine covers show up in the Zinio reader software but when I click on them they won't open and I get the message from Zinio "Unable to download this page, please try again later."

If anyone has found a way to do this successfully ... please send me a pm
 
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