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Magazines won't download in the background?

L

lsquare

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 30, 2010
813
92
So I started using Newsstand earlier today and is it just me or that magazines won't download in the background if I decide to use the browser? The minute I get out of the magazine app, everything stops. I don't want to sit there and wait because each magazine is like 650MB each so it'll take time even on a 15Mbit/sec connection. Even if I don't get out of the app, the download stops if the screen turns off.

Any tips on what I can do to eliminate these quirks?
 
Stop reading magazines?

650mb is a serious download but should not take that long on WiFi
 
Stealthipad said:
Stop reading magazines?

650mb is a serious download but should not take that long on WiFi
Click to expand...

More than 10 min. and I need to keep the iPad active or it won't finish the download. It's very annoying. How are you guys dealing with it?
 
Magazines need to stop rendering text out to images. Download sizes are getting ridiculous.
 
It depends on the app. Developers are able to code their apps to take advantage of background downloading in Newsstand (under iOS 5), but some app's do not take advantage of it. Even under iOS 4 developers could have their downloads continue in the background for 10 minutes. The issue is with the app developer, not Apple.
 
astrorider said:
It depends on the app. Developers are able to code their apps to take advantage of background downloading in Newsstand (under iOS 5), but some app's do not take advantage of it. Even under iOS 4 developers could have their downloads continue in the background for 10 minutes. The issue is with the app developer, not Apple.
Click to expand...

A lot of the app developers haven't even updated their apps for the retina display yet, so they might add updates related to background downloads at the same time.
 
All of my magazines:

will not load in the background
will not load if the screen goes off

You cannot have multiple magazines downloading
If you start a second magazine download the first one is halted and does not automatically resume

What ever you do....stay away from magazine download on LTE or say bye bye to your data (unless you're on ulimited then you habe to 5GB before being throttled).
 
lsquare said:
Suggestion for an easy way to keep the iPad active?
Click to expand...

If I suspect it will take a while, I turn off auto-lock before I start, or if it's started already I still go in and turn off auto-lock then go back to the DL and let it continue on.
 
I think this is a symptom of Apple's lame multitasking. There are many situations like this that I run into where I would like to let an app continue in the background.
 
I've noticed this as well. This is due to a combination of Apple's multitasking system as well as a crap developer who doesn't know how to program for paused status apps. Apple originally alleviated this problem by having magazines download via the iBook store but then the publishers kept pushing for in-app purchases. So now that these ******s have in-app purchasing, (they really wanted your credit card number, e-mail, and address so they can hound you for subscriptions) the publishers don't understand how to make apps properly. This is really one of the best reasons for aggregation to a single app that Apple produces because this in-app purchasing is BS. When you don't control the experience from head to toe, this is what happens.
 
This is an App problem, not an iOS problem.

Apple put in place API's that let apps carry on background tasks after it has been closed in iOS 4.0.

The developers of the App need to add these features to their app like others have, they have been available for 2 years now, so they don't have much of an excuse.
 
jabingla2810 said:
This is an App problem, not an iOS problem.

Apple put in place API's that let apps carry on background tasks after it has been closed in iOS 4.0.

The developers of the App need to add these features to their app like others have, they have been available for 2 years now, so they don't have much of an excuse.
Click to expand...

iOS 4 added 10 minutes of background download time, which may not be enough for a magazine download to complete. However, it should still let you resume your download.

iOS 5 added unlimited background download time for Newsstand apps.

But again, the app developer has to add these or you get zero background (lock screen or another app) download time. Some magazines have been updated, and others haven't it would seem.
 
iMacDragon said:
Blame adobe, from what I understand of the situation.

Zinio mags don't do this.
Click to expand...

And while they don't have any interactive content (personal don't want it but YMMV), mags on Zinio are far smaller (avg. 35 MB for my Auto mags) and will download in the background.
 
ZipZap said:
All of my magazines:

will not load in the background
will not load if the screen goes off

You cannot have multiple magazines downloading
If you start a second magazine download the first one is halted and does not automatically resume

What ever you do....stay away from magazine download on LTE or say bye bye to your data (unless you're on ulimited then you habe to 5GB before being throttled).
Click to expand...

Can you please provide your source for your 5GB throttle statement.
 
Don't ever say anything negative about apple products here. They are all perfect and just become even more perfect with each revision :rolleyes:
 
Yes. This happens/happened to me as well. I subscribe to about 5 magazines and when I got my new iPad, restoring the back issues took forever. And yes, I needed/wanted the back issues instead of just having the current one since the issues are included to my account. Having back issues is always a good thing when reading magazines. In any case, I proceeded to download/restore the back issues for all the magazines I had. However, it didn't allow me to download more than one issue at a time. So, I just let the back issues download and went back to normal iPad usage. 15-20 minutes later, the progress bar had not moved at all for any of them. It's irritating. Even at my 25MBps speed, 600-700MB seems to take forever. Especially when you are downloading back issues and waiting for one to finish and start the download.

Zcott said:
Settings > Store > Automatic Downloads
Click to expand...

The automatic downloads doesn't download the magazines. I don't know if it's related to it but I receive a notification when there's a new issue. I have to go to the magazine and download it manually. Also, isn't it only applicable to Music, Apps and Books as listed?


EDIT:
Turns out new magazine issues can be downloaded in the background if turned on via the Settings in the Store.

ipadmag.jpg
 
Last edited:
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