Good, but could use improved search function
Love the app for just keeping up to date with journal articles - if you have a university account, it's absolutely stellar. I wish I could search within a journal, even just a title search, though. It's not feasible to do research with the app currently, just to browse (which makes sense with the name, I'd just prefer a within-journal search function).
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Crashes upon opening
Latest update continuously crashes within 10 seconds
Very buggy
Stuck trying to find a full text article - when clearly, if you just tap on the screen, you can see in the background that it has loaded the page that it needs to. It just doesn’t show it.
What’s the point of the app if it doesn’t let you read the journal articles?
What’s the point of the app if it doesn’t let you read the journal articles?
Programmers have been responsive
I use BrowZine on the iPad format. The program was formally a good usable platform for reading journals. However, in the past several months, it has become almost unusable. I primarily use it for reading the New England Journal of Medicine. Formerly articles downloaded in a matter of seconds, now it takes up to one to two minutes for each article to load. Formally I was required to sign in one time to start a program session, now I have to sign in frequently. Scrolling is much less intuitive or reliable than it once was and I am periodically thrown out of an article which I’m reading and have to start the reloading process again. this makes for a very frustrating user experience. After filing the above review the BrowZine programmers did get in touch with me and did help me work through some of the interface problems. It turns out that the BrowZine interface is a little different for each institution which has its own internal formatting and requirements. Although not perfect, the user experience has certainly improved.
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Response from developer
We're sorry to hear about these problems! Our developers are looking into your comments but if you could contact us directly at support@thirdiron.com we would be interested in getting some additional details.
Love it
This is a great app for those wanting to keep track of new titles in a wide range of academic journals. The university systems enabling access has hiccup prompts that make access to PDFs less efficient but the app is great overall.
Unread view is a game-changer
Love this app and its ability to help me follow new articles across journals. The unread view is something I just discovered and has changed my workflow significantly for the better to quickly review new articles in press and across issues. 5 stars, essential for academic medicine.
Please hire some programmers
I use BrowZine on the iPad format. The program was formally a good usable platform for reading journals. However, in the past several months, it has become almost unusable. I primarily use it for reading the New England Journal of Medicine. Formerly articles downloaded in a matter of seconds, now it takes up to one to two minutes for each article to load. Formally I was required to sign in one time to start a program session, now I have to sign in frequently. Scrolling is much less intuitive or reliable than it once was and I am periodically thrown out of an article which I’m reading and have to start the reloading process again. this makes for a very frustrating user experience.
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Response from developer
We're sorry to hear about these problems! Our developers are looking into your comments but if you could contact us directly at support@thirdiron.com we would be interested in getting some additional details.
Clunky and not user friendly
Whilst access to my institutions library of journals in an app is extremely useful, the app itself is terrible and made worse by more recent updates. Very clunky and slow to open a full journal article, can’t export them as a pdf from the app any more, difficult to navigate things when the browser opened within the app. Also unable to edit my “bookshelf” - just appears in the order I add them. Did not find an easy way to offer this feedback to the app producers either.
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Loved the previous version
I have been using Browzine like it’s my Sunday morning paper for about a year now. Until the latest update, I was very happy with the app and encouraged my friends (fellow grad students) to download and use it. I could even easily send papers to my friends if it looked like something they would be interested in. Alternatively, when a paper seemed very useful to my research, I found it incredibly easy to export the pdf to Zotero for reading and taking notes. It was an awesome, smooth experience.
I’m not sure what happened with the latest update. I now have to repeatedly log back in, have to decide whether I want to read the article’s html or see the pdf before previewing it, and when I send a paper to Zotero, it will not send the pdf.
These problems have made using Browzine on my iPad cumbersome.
I wish I had the old version where none of these problems were happening. Until the next version, which will hopefully fix these issues, I’m no longer encouraging people to download it on their iPads.
I’m not sure what happened with the latest update. I now have to repeatedly log back in, have to decide whether I want to read the article’s html or see the pdf before previewing it, and when I send a paper to Zotero, it will not send the pdf.
These problems have made using Browzine on my iPad cumbersome.
I wish I had the old version where none of these problems were happening. Until the next version, which will hopefully fix these issues, I’m no longer encouraging people to download it on their iPads.
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Was brilliant but now…
Recent updates maybe in the journals have made it impossible to get the pdfs and difficult to read in html.
Not sure what’s gone wrong but it’s a pain now!
Not sure what’s gone wrong but it’s a pain now!
The last update caused issues
Now if I have to re-enter my passwords, and sometimes the article cannot be found. Please fix the bug.
Fast journal access
I began using this app again to access a range of journals I (should) read. Super fast access to quality titles organized in an accessible taxonomy presented in full PDF. The updates have been terrific. Solid, consistent delivery year after year.
Great app for grad students
In my last year of my PhD and wish I found this sooner! Definitely helps keep up-to-date on the literature. Much better than my workflow using Feedly.
Love this app, but occasionally buggy
Since the last update opening articles brings me to my library login page and won’t let me actually login. Help, please!
Response from developer
Thank you for your feedback and we're sorry that you're having troubles using BrowZine. Please contact us at support@thirdiron.com so that we can help you further with this problem with your library login. At that time please tell us your organization and the email address you used to create a BrowZine account and we'll be happy to assist you!
No longer functions
Worked well for a while. Now all it does is load blank pages when I try to open an article.
Response from developer
We apologize that you've been having trouble using BrowZine. Please contact us at support@thirdiron.com so we can better understand your issue. It would be helpful if you provided your BrowZine Account user name and organization, and we'll get this straightened out!
Keeping up to date
Great app to keep updated on articles
Love it
Highly recommended, easy to use, love having everything in one place
Some issues recently
I love this app - it’s sleek, easy to use, and has many of the journals I typically cite. Unfortunately for the past couple of weeks, I haven’t been to access any articles. When I try to open an article it says there’s an authentication error. I can still access everything normally through the browser version, so I’m thinking something changed in the latest app update? Looking forward to the next update to return to normal, thanks :)
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Response from developer
We apologize that you've been having trouble using BrowZine. Please contact us at support@thirdiron.com so we can help you with your authentication problem. Tell us your organization and the email address you used to create a BrowZine account, and we'll get this straightened out!
Useful, but slow
This app is a great way to read the journal at my campus library. My only gripe is it’s still really slow to load each article. Speed has improved in the recent release, but I still twiddle my thumbs while waiting.
Why can’t it download a whole journal at once? Or download several selected PDFs while I’m reading the first one?
Why can’t it download a whole journal at once? Or download several selected PDFs while I’m reading the first one?
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Response from developer
We're happy to hear that you find BrowZine useful! Because of publisher restrictions, we can't enable the bulk downloading of articles. However, there is an option to save individual articles by using the open folder icon next to an article's title. This allows you to save articles to a collection, and causes them to be downloaded in the background, while you do other activities in the app.
Great app but overly eager
I like the app but it would be nice if clicking on an article pulled up the title and abstract and a button to download the full text rather than immediately trying to download the paper.
