The Times Literary Supplement

The app is not very good but sort of works and the content of the magazine is not that bad. However, for a digital subscription, while you can easily sign up for a trial on their Web site, you can only discontinue the “trial” and avoid paying for a regular subscription by calling their call center, which does not make clear exactly when you may call. There is also an email address but all they are capable of doing is redirecting you to the call center. It’s obvious that the only reason for it to work this way is to make it inconvenient enough that you fail to cancel even if you do not wish to receive the subscription anymore. This sort of deceptive business practice ought to be illegal.

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.

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.