The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Space filler

Posted on June 11, 2013 by

Wordplay! Because not only is this article a token attempt at having a post on WoSland for the first time since nineteen-banana, it's about putting something on the empty shelves of the infinitely annoying Newsstand app in iOS.

newsstand

I've been delving around the App Store newsagents, and after a world of pain found a bunch of totally free publications (no time-limited trials or any of that guff) that aren't completely awful, and will stop you having to look at that ugly, undeleteable, unhideable icon. You can see them in the pic above. Links/descriptions below.

DAILY MIRROR

A PDFish version of the entire real newspaper, free on weekdays – weirdly, there isn't even a way to pay for the weekend editions as yet. Extremely user-friendly and a pleasure to read (content notwithstanding, tabloid snobs).

DAILY RECORD

The Mirror's Scottish sister paper offers the same deal.

With both the Mirror and the Record, as with many of the other publications here, there's one catch – downloads are often ridiculously big, at between 500MB and 1GB an issue, so you'll have to regularly delete back issues if you don't want to fill up your iPad's entire memory with nothing but old papers inside a month. First world problems, eh?

LONDON EVENING STANDARD

Again, the entire paper reproduced onscreen for nowt, but this time you get every edition published.

ES MAGAZINE

The Standard's weekly lifestyle mag, released every Friday. Not bad.

THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES

Weirdly, with the Times being at the forefront of internet paywalls, you get a big chunk of content from each day's paper for nothing in the app. It's a sampler rather than the full thing, but there's plenty to read in there. It's a custom app rather than a reproduction of the physical paper and therefore a little faffy, but nothing like as irritating as, say, The Guardian's horrendous app interface.

METRO TABLET EDITION

The Metro's iOS app used to be a full reproduction like the Mirror, Record and Standard, but has unaccountably been replaced with a far shittier dedicated app. It's still essentially the whole paper, though. The daily photograph gallery is probably the best bit, albeit slighty disfigured by an ad banner.

(The Guardian and Telegraph both have excellent free picture apps, but neither run through Newsstand.)

GAMEREACTOR (US/EU EDITION)

A pretty decent games mag, and nice and simple to use – flick sideways to scroll between features, flick vertically to read each feature a page at a time. It's a nice model copied by some of the other titles in this list. Surprisingly low-res text if you've got a Retina iPad, but if it helps to keep the download size lower it's not a bad thing.

To be honest, I'm no judge of how good games mags any more, because I have no idea what they're talking about most of the time, but it seems to be reasonably well-written as these things go.

ENGADGET DISTRO

Punchy, lively tech mag with the same interface style as GameReactor.

iGIZMO

Another gadget mag with the same basic interface, but a raft of clever-clever extra stuff nailed on top (eg split comparison features where you can scroll each half of the page separately) that'll make you want to punch the designers in the face a LOT until you learn to get round it. It's basically Distro for people who like to clap at fireworks.

HUFFINGTON MAGAZINE

This, though, is top-quality stuff for a slightly higher IQ bracket. A weekly collection of the best features from the website, it's a little US-focused but nevertheless contains some superb serious journalism – the latest issue (at time of writing) has a lengthy and properly tremendous piece on Guantanamo Bay, for example. No-nonsense GameReactor-type interface again makes it a pleasure to use too.

INTELLIGENT LIFE

A spinoff from The Economist, this is a pretty similar venture to Huffington, but aimed more in a cultural direction than a news one. Mostly shallower and also pretty middle-class (it's from The Economist, duh), but it's always nice to see how other folks live and the "What's the best philosophy?" feature in the latest edition I read was fun (and informative).

ATOMIX

And just by way of contrast and illustration, here's how you DON'T do an iPad mag (about videogames, in this case). A bloaty download typically in the 800MB ballpark hosts a ludicrously over-designed in-your-face mess, including auto-playing music, a crime for which the sentence would be death in any decent world. Trying to read copy is like navigating a maze, and you're never quite sure where you are. I don't think I ever finished an article.

That should be enough to make your Newsstand look a bit less insufferable. Some of these apps have iPhone/iPod versions too, but you're on your own there. (Android? No idea.) Remember not to set anything to auto-download unless you want to find yourself out of memory in a week. And there we go – it might not have been very entertaining, but it was useful. And hey, what do you expect from free journalism, right?

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

4 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Steve Smith

Considering how much you criticise iApple and its software ("Dear Apple, shove iOS7 up your arse"?), you still use it and write about it a lot.  Go on, give Android a go and write something us non-Apple acolytes can relate to. 

sbtrct

There's a simple utility called "StifleSatnd" that will stick NewsStand into a folder, and you don't need to jailbreak your device. It's here:

link to filippobiga.com

This problem is going away in iOS 7 anyway.

sbtrct

God. *StifleStand*, not Satnd. Obviously.


  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

    Stats: 6,670 Posts, 1,202,836 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Mia on The Long Unravelling: ““if Wingers truly believe that any enemy of ours must be given carte blanche to do as they want” A…Nov 22, 09:44
    • Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “It is a distressing thought that if Nikita Stalin, Evans, Wark, Garavelli, Swinney, Ruddock, Lloyd and all the others had…Nov 22, 09:37
    • Mac on The Long Unravelling: “Having a government that is consumed with an unexplained hatred for the source of cheap and plentiful energy on Europe’s…Nov 22, 09:22
    • Mia on The Long Unravelling: ““the sabotage and destruction that’s been ongoing since 2014” I like to call it British and USA’s deep states’ sponsored…Nov 22, 09:21
    • TURABDIN on The Long Unravelling: “The anglo-american Nato war by proxy in central Europe ought to be a game-changer for the bright , if there…Nov 22, 09:18
    • Mia on The Long Unravelling: “Actually, twathater, he might have been democratically elected to the post of MSP, but he was “coronated” as leader of…Nov 22, 09:03
    • Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “Thanks RM, So another poll showing 52% to 48% in favour of Yes. Humpster will be down in the Dumpster.Nov 22, 08:42
    • Dan on The Long Unravelling: “If energy is too expensive to buy to keep you, your family home, or business premises warm, you can at…Nov 22, 08:41
    • Mac on The Long Unravelling: “Now into telling blatant lies to justify gen0ocide and ethnic cleansing. What a repulsive individual. The world can see who…Nov 22, 08:09
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Winter Covid’s making a resurgence, Gregor. Many don’t know when they have it. First thing to go is the sense…Nov 22, 07:52
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Stupidity, surely. He’s standing with the burners of babies, the rapist mutilators of teenage lassies, the hostage takers, the indiscriminate…Nov 22, 07:27
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Well, well. So you do have an ‘S’ on your keyboard. It’s just “scotland” that has to go without. Who’d…Nov 22, 07:16
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “‘This is not a case of me , you , or anyway else thinking our opinions are ” superior ”’…Nov 22, 07:07
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Sure, Breeks. The soil of Holy Mother R is, of course, sacred. The soil of everywhere else, like U for…Nov 22, 07:00
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Falling out of windows is certainly endemic in R and its satellites. But targets and innocent bystanders can also get…Nov 22, 06:53
    • Robert Hughes on The Long Unravelling: “Yes , indeed , B . I’ve never known such levels of mendacious propaganda being spewed 24/7 by MSM &…Nov 22, 06:03
    • Oneliner on The Long Unravelling: “Yep – better to stick to an ad hominem like ‘microbe’ Do you have any mirrors in your butt an’…Nov 22, 05:21
    • Mark Beggan on The Long Unravelling: “He should have grown a moustache like Neil Gray.Nov 22, 04:59
    • Breeks on The Long Unravelling: “I haven’t either, indeed it’s something of a fallacy calling them newspapers. A cursory glance in the direction of the…Nov 22, 04:56
    • The Flying Iron of Doom on The Long Unravelling: “Don’t you mean “You fall out with the Tsar, you fall out of a window”? 🙂Nov 22, 03:00
    • Robert Matthews on The Long Unravelling: “https://www.progressscotland.org/uploads/Progress-Scotland-Nov-Release.pdfNov 22, 02:51
    • Robert Matthews on The Long Unravelling: “https://www.progressscotland.org/uploads/Progress-Scotland-Nov-Release.pdfNov 22, 02:49
    • Robert Matthews on The Long Unravelling: “Julius Evola – The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti and the Secret Way, should steer you in the Right direction.Nov 22, 02:43
    • Campbell Clansman on The Long Unravelling: “I see that I’m living rent-free in your head. … Perhaps you’d explain how childish name-calling advances your cause?Nov 22, 02:23
    • Michael Laing on The Long Unravelling: “Perhaps you could explain to us, Camp Bellend, how Scotland benefits from being in the UK? How does having governments…Nov 21, 23:37
    • Michael Laing on The Long Unravelling: “It’s deliberate. He’s an unelected UK state plant. He’s just continuing the sabotage and destruction that’s been ongoing since 2014.Nov 21, 23:11
    • Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “You do like your facts embedded in your fantasy future Dumpster CamelMan. Unfortunately for you Cancer FannyBaws the last two…Nov 21, 22:58
    • Shug on The Long Unravelling: “I do hope Swinney and co turn up at Salmond’s memorial so we can tell them what we think of…Nov 21, 22:52
    • wull on The Long Unravelling: “Flynn should also have known that Alex Salmond also donated one of the two salaries he had at one point…Nov 21, 22:39
    • Campbell Clansman on The Long Unravelling: “Glasgow is an Indy stronghold. If these areas vote 2-1 Unionist parties, all the Alba/Salvo fantasies and all the lies…Nov 21, 22:37
  • A tall tale



↑ Top
114
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x