The Times Literary Supplement

I prefer the paper — the feel, the smell, the look of it, the turning of its pages and folding it in half to tuck it under my arm as I make my way to wherever I’m not content to be without the TLS by my side — but there are times when I’m finished with the paper or when I haven’t brought it with me, and this app does well to provide a not-too-far-off-from-the-paper satisfaction. It’s not beautiful, as the paper is, but it’s all there. Too, the archive goes way back, so there’s always something new (to me) to read.

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Worst digital subscription app I have had the sad occasion to pay for using. Can’t remember my subscription information and provides no means to sign in to one’s account. Open the account tab and you are informed you are not authorized to view YOUR account information. All past issues locked for access by digital subscribers only, though you are and for several years have been a suffering digital subscriber. Sometimes the app remembers who you are and lets you in. Other times it does not and since it doesn’t allow you to sign in (how elementary a convenience!) you must again send an email to find out how to get in—when you want to read an issue now, not three days hence. This has been going on for 3 years and no web site improvements in that time. Tossing the app and keeping the print edition.

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While I so far I haven’t had the login issues that others have reported, I have substantial complaints: 1. I prefer to select what to read based on the topic and author of the books being reviewed, but that information is deeply buried. Thematic heads like “SCIENCE” are often too broad to help. 2. The information that is prominent in the table of contents includes reviewers’ names that I only sometimes recognize, and review titles, selected for cleverness rather than utility. 3. In print, I read a bit of the review, then look at who the reviewer is, and return to the review. In the app, this is a cumbersome process. 4. On my iPad, the app will orient to landscape from either side, but portrait only one way, and not the way that would be most useful.

For some time now, and even without the app getting any updates, it seems, I keep losing the issues I had downloaded. It’s a real pain to have to redownload things all the time, never mind that you still get logged out at intervals. Please at least go back to a version that kept the downloads. I love the journal and often like to revisit issues, and seldom get through the whole one within a week.

A longtime subscriber to the hard copy edition, I am still loyal to the paper version but find the app a sensible and practical alternative when I’m on travel. Its main virtues are simplicity, clarity, and - frankly - a direct reflection of the printed version’s structure. Less is more. My only recommendation is to keep the articles’ titles identical to the hard copy edition.