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That makes it sound even worse, actually -- it takes 80 seconds to start up and it still isn't finished? What is it doing for those first 80 seconds?

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Possibly getting the visual thumbnail index, cover, toc, and if they're nuts, intro video (talking head telling you what stories are in the issue). There's an option to autostart the talking head, they think it's that cool.

To add insult to injury, the quality of the cover flow images is horrendous. The JPEG artifacting makes the sub-headlines difficult to read, so it's not just an aesthetic complaint; it is yet another usability problem.

PS - I decided to open up The Daily to confirm that the JPEG artifacts do not go away after further loading. They do not. However, it is a little after midnight for me now, so when I opened the app, I hit the "A new issue of The Daily is being delivered" wait screen. How poetic.

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