ARRL magazines

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If you choose to read the magazine from start to finish without shutting off your iPad or using other apps, then this is reader is good. It takes a while to start up and loading a magazine is slow, however. The biggest problem is if you leave the app to use other apps or stop using your iPad for a while, the app forgets where that you were reading the magazine, You don't have to re-download it, but it has no history of where you were in the magazine so you have to open up again and you're at the first page. This is a big pain and makes using the app very inconvenient. I would almost rather just wait for the print version of the magazine to show than use this app. Because of this app, I would never consider canceling my print subscription and going with just the digital version. Given how infrequent updates to this app are, it looks we'll be stuck with it for a long time. I don't think going back to the previous version is possible, although it might be.

As of Mar 25: I have loaded and tested the new ver 5.1 and can download issues very well. The new version seems to download faster and flip between pages better. The program works fine. I had complained to the developer via the app feedback and got a reply and even tested a beta for them and today got an email telling me that the new version was available. The process took a while, but I really appreciate the contacts and good service that seems so rare today. My Mar 12 review: It's now been over a month and still no fix. If you can't fix it then at least pull it back and restore the previous version that worked. This is very poor practice for a professional organization and a professional developer. My Feb 18 review: I actually got a reply when I sent feedback through the menu in the app: Apologies for the inconvenience you've encountered. We're currently working on resolving a known issue with the QST app some users are experiencing. Thanks very much for your patience. It shouldn't take weeks to fix such an obvious problem. My original review: The new version immediately crashes when you hit download. I'm using iOS 9 on a 3rd gen iPad.

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Update: This has to be one of the most inconsistent apps on the App Store. Updates get released, the app gets broken, and issues cease to appear, crash on downloading, or the UI gets unresponsive. It’s as if they never heard of testing and just ship whatever they feel like with no attention to quality or detail. So disappointed with the engineers behind this one... Original: So disappointing to see an already buggy and poorly written app get worse. I love QST and have read it for almost 30 years, first in print and now digitally. However, this app continues to be a glaring disappointment. For some reason, those behind it are incapable of the simplest of basic tests prior to release. Loss of credentials. Hung screens. Half-visible title bar overlays. Or even the basic error of losing which page you're on when switching to another app and then swapping back. Shame on you ARRL for such a poor choice of subcontractors and shame on them for the talent quality they employ.

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Had high hopes for the new version but none of my previous problems were fixed especially remembering where I left off when I last used the app. COMPLETE FAILURE !!!!! Puts my future membership in ARRL in jeopardy. Back to my downloading and reading with PDF reader. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The previous app while not great was at least usable. This app has two glaring deficiencies. 1. When zooming the pictures are so blurry they really are not viewable. This is a basic function and reason that us old guys use a tablet. 2. It does not remember what page you were last reading when you leave and come back. Neither do I so I have to go through the content looking for familiar landmarks. This makes the app extremely annoying to use and angers me every time I come back in. I have used a lot of reading apps and I have NEVER seen this behavior before !!!! There are probably many other issues but these two make me wince so much that I don't even want to use the app. I have also noticed looking at the previous app history that updates may take almost a year between updates. This makes me despair.

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All my downloaded issues have disappeared - probably difficult to avoid when the viewing app changes. But the new app got even worse: 1) cannot download multiple issues simultaneously, 2) pictures are in lower resolution than with previous app and look very bad when zoomed up, 3) look & feel of the app have much room for improvement, 4) as with previous app, the download speed could be faster. I use other magazine apps that have a much superior user interface and load the magazines much faster. Now I hope that at least the new app doesn't crash as often as the previous one......