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Newsstand: Why no background downloading???

M

MBX

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 14, 2006
2,030
817
You gotta be kidding me. The Newsstand in-app purchasing store has no background download option???

Why would they let me babysit a 300-500mb download without being able to do anything else?

I just switched to another app and when i switched back to the Newsstand magazine in-app the download went back to 0 again. The same happens when the iPad screen shut's off automatically and when you switch it back on the download is back at 0.

Is this a joke?
 
Yeah I don't get it either. The whole idea of it was that new issues would arrive without me doing anything.

Only ones that worked were the NY Times and SF Chronicle. All the magazines you still need to manually download and like you said, if you exit the download will pause.
 
Zcott said:
Check Settings > Store and make sure automatic downloads are set to On for each publication.
Click to expand...

that does not solve the issue of the download progressing in background so far.

WTF
 
MBX said:
You gotta be kidding me. The Newsstand in-app purchasing store has no background download option???

Why would they let me babysit a 300-500mb download without being able to do anything else?

I just switched to another app and when i switched back to the Newsstand magazine in-app the download went back to 0 again. The same happens when the iPad screen shut's off automatically and when you switch it back on the download is back at 0.

Is this a joke?
Click to expand...

Your beef is with the particular magazine app that you're using. As a developer with a Newsstand app, I can tell you that Newsstand kit backgrounds continue in the background. That particular magazine developer may have not fully updated their app when iOS 5 was released, so they may be using Newsstand kit for automatic downloading in the background when a new issue is released, and to appear in the Newsstand shelf, but still using their old code when an issue is purchased while you're in the app. I know, not helping you with your problem, just trying to point you in the right direction for where the blame lies.
 
The background downloading works for me with Newsstand, The Guardian's new issue is always downloaded and ready to read when I wake up.
 
astrorider said:
Your beef is with the particular magazine app that you're using. As a developer with a Newsstand app, I can tell you that Newsstand kit backgrounds continue in the background. That particular magazine developer may have not fully updated their app when iOS 5 was released, so they may be using Newsstand kit for automatic downloading in the background when a new issue is released, and to appear in the Newsstand shelf, but still using their old code when an issue is purchased while you're in the app. I know, not helping you with your problem, just trying to point you in the right direction for where the blame lies.
Click to expand...

This may well be true. Nevertheless, it appears that virtually none of the Conde Nast publications (Wired, SI, New Yorker, Vogue, and numerous others) actually work as advertised. Furthermore, even if one subscribes to a publication (i.e. one does not "purchase" a particular issue while "in the app"), the failure of unattended background loading either as a result wifi not being available, server load, or bandwidth contention yields the same result. One has to manually download an issue and cannot exit the app without cancelling the download.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the only publications that work consistently as advertised may be the Guardian and the New York Times. (I suspect that's because the downloads are smaller and are more likely to be successful via the unattended download route.)

The "blame" clearly does not lie only with the publications, especially considering that "Newsstand" is an iOS feature imposed on both users and publications to increase revenue for Apple. Considering that background downloading is the only real benefit users can expect from Newsstand, it's Apple's responsibility to make it work as advertised.
 
jsh1120 said:
This may well be true. Nevertheless, it appears that virtually none of the Conde Nast publications (Wired, SI, New Yorker, Vogue, and numerous others) actually work as advertised.
Click to expand...

GQ works fine, my latest issue was ready to read when I opened the Newsstand app. Automatic download functionality is up to the developers. However, I believe the automatic download will only start with the next issue you receive after you enable it in Settings.
 
RossMc said:
The background downloading works for me with Newsstand, The Guardian's new issue is always downloaded and ready to read when I wake up.
Click to expand...

I think the issue here is 'multi-tasking' versus 'timed delivery.' If I am correct, Apple does allow for delivery of news no more than once per day. Thus if you subscribe to a newspaper, then you will receive daily push of news early in the morning. However, if you purchase a magazine without a subscription (Condé Nast allows this example), that purchase requires a manual download and that download will not continue when you close the app. I do not believe that any of the apps that sit in thew newsstand offer multi-tasking at all (to save memory, I assume). Therefore any download initiated by the end user will require that the app be kept open.
 
mrrish said:
I think the issue here is 'multi-tasking' versus 'timed delivery.' If I am correct, Apple does allow for delivery of news no more than once per day. Thus if you subscribe to a newspaper, then you will receive daily push of news early in the morning. However, if you purchase a magazine without a subscription (Condé Nast allows this example), that purchase requires a manual download and that download will not continue when you close the app. I do not believe that any of the apps that sit in thew newsstand offer multi-tasking at all (to save memory, I assume). Therefore any download initiated by the end user will require that the app be kept open.
Click to expand...

Almost correct. Even if you subscribe to a magazine any failure of the background unattended delivery will result in the behavior your describe. For example, a timeout in the unattended delivery due to bandwidth contention or server load will leave the user with the responsibility to download manually with the app in the foreground.

This has occurred twice for my New Yorker subscription. It's not a major problem for me because my wifi network is very fast. Downloads typically take about two minutes. But for those with slower connections, I imagine the problem is exacerbated for large downloads.
 
Any of the background download processes will fail and need to be restarted if you lose your network connection. The best example of this is the App Store update process.

I've stated this before on multiple occasions. If your subscription app is not downloading in the background, you need to complain to your content provider, and they need to update their application.

I don't care if they are the largest publication conglomerate in the industry, if they have not updated their app it won't work in the background.
 
Yeah, and the joke's on us!

:-(


MBX said:
You gotta be kidding me. The Newsstand in-app purchasing store has no background download option???

Why would they let me babysit a 300-500mb download without being able to do anything else?

I just switched to another app and when i switched back to the Newsstand magazine in-app the download went back to 0 again. The same happens when the iPad screen shut's off automatically and when you switch it back on the download is back at 0.

Is this a joke?
Click to expand...
 
jsh1120 said:
The "blame" clearly does not lie only with the publications, especially considering that "Newsstand" is an iOS feature imposed on both users and publications to increase revenue for Apple. Considering that background downloading is the only real benefit users can expect from Newsstand, it's Apple's responsibility to make it work as advertised.
Click to expand...

I get that it's fun to blame Apple for everything, but thats like saying its Apple's fault if apps aren't Retina optimized.

Apple provided the APIs for background downloading, but since Apple can't physically update the publications how is it their fault? The only thing they could have done was reject any publications which didn't support that feature, but how would that be fair?

The blame lies squarely on the publications for being lazy.
 
I subscribe to The Daily on my iPad and it downloads by itself every morning. Wired, Distro, and Game Informer seem to just notify me that there's a new issue, but it doesn't download by itself AND I can't do anything else with the iPad while those are downloading because it then pauses.

I love Newsstand, but the devs could be utilizing it much better. I read USA Today and the Chicago Tribune in the mornings, and they don't even HAVE Newsstand functionality yet. It's ridiculous.
 
Agreed...All my magazines are making me babysit 500 meg magazines....NatGeo, Time, and Consumer Reports...
 
Same problem. Truly irritating.

I have the same problem trying to download my subscriptions to Wired, GQ and Esquire. I am often traveling in locations with very low bandwidth. It is so annoying that I can't let a magazine download while I am sleeping, but must babysit my iPad, sometimes for an hour or more, while the magazine I have paid for slowly crawls onto my device, MB by MB.
 
It is apple's fault.

They never allowed background downloading in the first place when it's obvious it would be a burden
 
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