Fine Homebuilding Magazine

Expected a MUCH better digital experience from Fine Homebuilding, which is an excellent magazine - but this app is a disaster (and apparently has been for years). When you try to log in with your Fine Homebuilding account you get an error and cannot, even though their help section says print subscribers can enter their “email address and last name” to gain access to digital versions of issues. In fact, there is no verification of your Fine Homebuilding subscription whatsoever - all you have to do is create a NEW account in the app, with ANY email (that you can check a verification message for) and password, and once you click that confirmation link in that email you can sign into the app and read a couple years back of issues! What happened here?! Did they have so much trouble getting it to work for paying subscribers that they just opened it up to anyone with a working email address (in other words everyone in 2023)?! Why are we paying for (quite costly, as far as magazines go) subscriptions to this magazine when anyone can install this app, sign up for free and read not just the current issue but the last two year’s worth?! I don’t know what they’re doing with all that subscription money, but they sure as heck aren’t putting even a small fraction of it into their app development. This is an embarrassment for an otherwise superb magazine.*UPDATE*You don’t even need to register or log in AT ALL. You can just install the app and you’re able to read the last year-and-a-half worth of back issues. Again, why are we paying for subscriptions when we can just read for free here???Also, an IMPORTANT NOTE: The support email address listed in the app IS NOT the Fine Homebuilding support address listed on the website. I don’t know if the address in the app is intentionally wrong or just different, but emails to the address listed in the app go ignored/unanswered, while messages sent to the address listed on the website are actually read/replied to.

I have tried to send feedback to Taunton via their apps and via the web site, but neither works (I have screen shots if someone at Taunton wants details) so have resorted to a review. The new version of this app is a big step backward. The biggest problem for me that I am not seeing the latest issue of the magazine on older devices. I have an old iPad in my shop and there’s no way I’m going to replace it just for this. It used to work just fine. Another problem is that they have not thoroughly tested offline use. A couple of days ago I was away from net access and went to read the mag. It would not show me an issue I had previously downloaded because it could not connect to their site. Both of these are unacceptable. If these are not fixed by the the time my membership is up for renewal in a few months, I won’t be renewing. And they should fix the feedback/contact mechanisms too. I’m posting the exact same review for both FWW and FHB.

I like the new interface. Very responsive when interacting with magazine pages. Downloads seem faster too. Thanks!