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Comment by scott_s | Hacker News Reader

I hate Newsstand. Mine has one app in it: The NY Times. I use it frequently - any time I'm eating a diner breakfast, or taking the train into the city on the weekend. I don't want Newsstand, I just want the NY Times app in an easy place to get to.

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That's the only one in mine too. The problem with Newsstand isn't the folder. It's that there are no good publications for it. Publishers just export their PDF into the app. If they designed an experience like the NYT or The Magazine I'd be using Newsstand a lot more. I wouldn't mind Apple forcing them to do it either (i.e. new 'guideline' preventing apps which only sell PDF's).

Actually, just exporting a PDF would be a huge improvement on most of the periodicals I've tried. Instead they do stuff like exporting enormous bitmaps of text pages, making for bigger downloads, uglier text, and inability to search.

If you think Newsstand is bad, you should definitely avoid the Kindle version.

A quick skimming of the reviews of NYTimes 4 Kindle show mostly positive associations with the Kindle-specific features.

There are kindle specific features?

I think most people like the fact that even the Sunday edition is only $1 (that's why I buy it). It's very bare bones. Pretty much just text and sometimes a single image. Charts or images with text are usually unreadable.

> It's that there are no good publications for it. Publishers just export their PDF into the app.

I don't find this to be the case. National Geographic includes video, and Wired includes interesting intactive content. The New Yorker even includes a section where you can read all the cartoons ;) Hardly just a PDF export.

I read Scientific American Mind and I actually wish it were a PDF. Instead, it's an app, with content that I can hide and show and some additional features like the odd video. It's pretty, but it's a shame that it is completely tied to my iPad and the articles aren't shareable with anyone, or saveable.

Yeah, the NY Times should really think about coming out with a tablet app. I'd subscribe.

They have an app for iPad, but I don't find it necessary. I like browsing the standard website on my iPad. On my phone, however, the app is better than the website - easier to navigate and read. (If I am zoomed to the point that I can see the entire width of the front page, I can't read it very well.)

Yeah, my post was sarcastic, but it may have been a bit too dry to appear as such. Over a succession of releases, their iPad app went from not-too-bad, to buggy, to forehead-slappingly awful in iOS 7, at which point I cancelled my subscription.

Woosh. Yeah, missed it entirely. I think their website is great, so there's really no need for a tablet app. I think they should cut their losses on it. Focus on the site itself, and the iPhone/Android apps.

And The Daily Granite too!

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