Bon Appetit

I was a long time subscriber of Bon Appetit’s print version until I grew weary of stacks of magazines and recycling. This morning I decided to try subscribing to the digital version. I read other reviews and decided I could work around the small type by printing the recipes I want to use only to discover this is not possible. Well, I can take a screen shot, edit it and then print a photo. Not very practical. I like the simple layout of recipes, but reading articles gives me a headache. Without a change to the app I won’t be renewing next year. Too bad for both the magazine and myself. I gave the app three stars because I love the content.

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I’ve loved the Bon Appétit iPad app for years and preferred it to print issues (I’ve been subscribed for about 4 years and seen the app experience get better and better over time, with fun swipeable layouts for articles, animation, modules you could toggle to make photos easier to view, etc.) The new update gets rid of all the best features about the app and makes it the same as reading the print issue. In particular, the recipe index and separate section for recipes was very important and made it much easier to cook from directly. In the new version of the app, the recipe text is as small as the print issue (actually smaller because I have an iPad mini) and very inconvenient to actually read. I’m so disappointed I’m considering canceling my subscription—it would be easier and more legible to just pull up the recipes on the website than try to read them off the app. I don’t understand why they would go backward like this unless they fired their whole app team.

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100% agree with the others who said this latest version is a giant step backward. The former app took a great magazine and made it even better and more useful. The recipe index, pop up recipe pages, story layouts, animation, and high level of interactivity made it perfect and fun for consuming and cooking from via iPad. It’s not even really an app now so much as it is just a scaled down pdf of the print magazine. It’s hard to read, hard to use, and hard to navigate. Type is to small, you have to flip back and forth between photo and recipe because it’s meant as a two page spread in print. To add insult to injury, they took all the old fabulous issues away (along with all my bookmarks) so I can’t even refer back to those. It’s awful in every way. This was the last great iPad magazine app. I’m fairly devastated. They need to revert back but I suspect they won’t for short-sighted, penny pinching reasons. Way to go Condé Nast.

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I could see getting rid of all the bells and whistles. I don’t need fancy animation or a never-ending scroll of what have you, but for god’s sake, why get rid of the one thing people would consistently reference and even go back to months down the road? The recipe index was the cherry on top of a great experience. By removing it and its pop-up feature, you’ve made it infinitely more difficult to bookmark, email, or even whimsically pick a random issue of the past and select a never before made recipe. I get it, times are tight and there are definitely bigger problems in the world, but man, this is a bummer.

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The recent update turned the previously well-designed app into something useless... essentially just a pdf of the magazine with no interactive features, including no ability to bring up ingredient lists and recipes. On my iPad, the print is so small, I can’t even read it, it won’t allow me to pinch enlarge or turn the iPad sideways to try to enlarge print enough to actually read it. If this isn’t changed back by the end of the month, I’ll be cancelling my subscription after years of enjoying the magazine. Seriously- what were you thinking?