Goodbye, it was nice reading you, but now its impossible to continue

[andykillen]

Sadly I live in a ass end of nowhere in the east of holland, where nobody stocks What HiFi anymore. They use to, but it seems that in the past year everyone has dropped it.

I've been a digital subscriber I think since the first digital edition, but cannot continue to do this due to 2 reasons out of my control.

1. Zinio no longer acepts paypal payments. I am unable to pay with creditcard as I do not have one or direct debit as they do not have payment capibility for iDeal the payment standard in NL. (of course not having a credit card makes in impossible to buy the paper based version from your store also)

2.The Apple newsstand app for What Hifi only works on iOS6+. Why on earth you want to preclude iPad 1 customers from reading the magazine is a little beyond me. I really can't think of any reason at all why iOS6 is a requirement for what is basicaly a PDF reader. Considering I develope apps for mobile I've got an idea here on what is necessary or not in a magazine reader, and it is not much. So despite having iTunes Store credit, I can't install the app or download the magazine.

So with that said, I must say goodbye as I can't enjoy you anymore. Do let me know if you decide to support iOS5+ in future.

sincerely
Andy Killen

 

[Deleted member 2457]

My digital subscription is still giving me some issues, wish I had bought it the old fashion way! :wall:

 

[Deleted member 2457]

My digital subscription is now working a lot better.

 

[andykillen]

Well I finally managed to get the install of the previous edition of the Viewer on Newsstand what is supporting iOS5, tried to reply here to let people know but got a great error that the subject title was too long "Subject cannot be longer than 64 characters but is currently 72 characters long.". weird, and could not post. (what with the poor performenace of putting in html directly into a forum post and error messages like the one above, my word there seems to be a bit of a difference between what should be and what is)

Either way I spoke to soon as now this months edition i can't download as the system tells me I have insufficent credit when trying to buy. €9.75 sits in my account but I can't buy a magazine for €5.75

To futher add insult to injury I really can't be f***ed to setup the email address on my ipad (thus spreading my mails accross many systems as it's not iMAP) so that I can raise a ticket with the makers of the newsstand software. Why can't I do something to get support with my already existing apple ID?????

really, do you choose to make this stuff as difficult as possible?

 

[professorhat]

really, do you choose to make this stuff as difficult as possible?

Yes, 99% of all efforts of the Haymarket staff are dedicated to making it as difficult as possible for you to read their magazines. The other 1% create the magazine itself and what you see here.

(hopefully you see from this how difficult a task it is!)

 

[bigboss]

Well I finally managed to get the install of the previous edition of the Viewer on Newsstand what is supporting iOS5, tried to reply here to let people know but got a great error that the subject title was too long "Subject cannot be longer than 64 characters but is currently 72 characters long.". weird, and could not post. (what with the poor performenace of putting in html directly into a forum post and error messages like the one above, my word there seems to be a bit of a difference between what should be and what is)

Check where I have typed THIS IS THE SUBJECT LINE, CUT IT SHORT. That's the one you need to delete a few letters out of.

 

[andykillen]

Yes I can delete characters, but I ask you

- Why should I have to? the computer system should be more than capible of handling a long title

- How did I manage to create the original title in the first place that was 69 characters long?

The quallity of the code is dubious at best, plain poor at worst.

 

[John Duncan]

Yes I can delete characters, but I ask you

- Why should I have to? the computer system should be more than capible of handling a long title

- How did I manage to create the original title in the first place that was 69 characters long?

The quallity of the code is dubious at best, plain poor at worst.

I'd ask for your money back if I were you.

 

[andykillen]

haha, gosh you are a joker. snigger, you are so droll etc... :S :-7 :s and other sarcasum.

Is this not the place where you lay out your complaints about the magazine, and therefore it's contributing parts, such as the e-delivery and forum?

appears not.

 

[professorhat]

It is, and you're doing it in such a pleasent manner, I'm sure they'll be rushing to help you.

The point being made is you don't have to post here if it upsets you that much. Clearly Haymarket haven't made the site this way on purpose to annoy people, and are aware of the issues. If there was an easy way to fix them, then they would probably fix them. Since they're not fixed, this suggests the issue is not easy to resolve.

As JD has pointed out, it's not like you're paying anything to be here, so the expression of entitlement is a little misplaced I feel.

 

[andykillen]

Hang on a sec, this is just a drupal CMS (which was free) with a bit of forum software on top( that no doubt was also free open source stuff). To change the error message and the character length issue would take no longer than half a day on anybodies time who knows PHP and MySQL. It is after all just changing the database colum details to be a longer setting i.e. varchar(256) instead of varchar(64) and adapting the forum software slightly.

And yes personally I find it a disappointment that these kind of simple errors are not dealt with. It's not entitlement your seeing, it's disappointment.

They have chosen to create a forum so that the community can communicate and be repeat visitors to their website, which in turn will bring new subscriptions, or even sales via the new shop, which again they make money on. As well as in general increase the value of Haymarket...

Speaking of the money involved, there is apparently a readership of over 34,000 (according to the haymarket stats in 2012), which all buy the magazine in it's various formats. Lets just imagine for a second that they all garner the same profit of £4, that would be approx £136,000 proffit pcm plus profit from advertising, before payments for wages and online presence. I'm actually thinking that £400 investment in a contractor to get the forum up to a decent standard is not a significant expenditure.

As for entitlement, I do feel a certian amount of entitlement when I enter a shop that the shop staff will actually answer my questions, and not just walk away. Especially if I am a regular customer. I do feel entitled to a response. Lets not forget that I started this as I could not by the magazine electronically any more.

Of course it is also possible that me writing in a different language to normal could be misconstrude as rude.....

 

[John Duncan]

Forgive my curt reply earlier on, as although I don't work there any more I was responsible for building this website in its current form and still take criticism of it rather personally. I know it's stupid that the forum post and reply boxes have different data lengths, but that's the way the Drupal contrib modules were built. As a software developer, you'll know that all software is a compromise, and with limited resources they fix the most important things first, and less important things get fixed later or not at all. Since this has been there for the three years since I left, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Further, I suspect the editorial staff will be surprised to hear that they must be making huge amounts of money from the magazine, or that this website was 'free'.

As for the problems with apps' incompatibility with iOSwhatever, that doesn't sound like something in the magazine's control.

 

[andykillen]

John, thanks for your reply. And yes I truly understand what it feels like to have your baby (which was planned all the way through childhood, school, university and beyond) cut short and aborted into some sort of wart that should be cut out. Far too many times this has happened to every developer I am sure.

And I also have seen that dev of the site seems to have stopped when you departed (shame full to be honest. the update was great, the consistancy since is not so cool). I would love to sing the praises of the new shop, but developer to developer, the task has been given to a dba that understands interfacing between systems but not clients who buy. Sadly I think it will never make it out of beta. It needs a front end aware, shop psychology understanding developer to take up the reigns and steer it to a better place.

The stats I quoted are only the ones that Haymarket project on their "About What Hifi" page, in fact they suggest a readership of 1.8 million. Which would be very nice I guess.

As for my iOS nightmare, I would just like someone from Haymarket to understand that they are turning away money at the moment by choosing the "new" newsstand provider. They are far to focused on the latest and greatest to worry about a client base. But the problem as I see it is that I am willing to give €75 for a years subscription, which I am not able to. For me that warrants 5 mins of someones time to reply to me, or even ***** a little as the newsstand provier.

 

[andykillen]

John, thanks for your reply. And yes I truly understand what it feels like to have your baby (which was planned all the way through childhood, school, university and beyond) cut short and aborted into some sort of wart that should be cut out. Far too many times this has happened to every developer I am sure.

And I also have seen that dev of the site seems to have stopped when you departed (shame full to be honest. the update was great, the consistancy since is not so cool). I would love to sing the praises of the new shop, but developer to developer, the task has been given to a dba that understands interfacing between systems but not clients who buy. Sadly I think it will never make it out of beta. It needs a front end aware, shop psychology understanding developer to take up the reigns and steer it to a better place.

The stats I quoted are only the ones that Haymarket project on their "About What Hifi" page, in fact they suggest a readership of 1.8 million. Which would be very nice I guess.

As for my iOS nightmare, I would just like someone from Haymarket to understand that they are turning away money at the moment by choosing the "new" newsstand provider. They are far to focused on the latest and greatest to worry about a client base. But the problem as I see it is that I am willing to give €75 for a years subscription, which I am not able to. For me that warrants 5 mins of someones time to reply to me, or even complain a little at the newsstand provier.

 

[bigboss]

If I'm not mistaken, the powers that be are away attending CES, so I guess the official response will come upon their return.

 

[andykillen]

I guess christmas and newyear took as much presidence as that, considering my original post was on the 23rd of December.

I await the powers that be.