John Fox
publisher 👉👈 app developer
New app
Subscriber for years
The worst app on the iTunes Store
Paid for special issues are gone
Can’t log in, my purchases inaccessible
Find homebuilding is amazing. But this app is a huge disappointment, and the support for the app is appalling.
Caution
New software
Thanks
Have subscription but always wants me to pay for newest issue
This App Is A Disaster
When you try to log in with your Fine Homebuilding account you get an error and cannot, even though their help section says print subscribers can enter their “email address and last name” to gain access to digital versions of issues. In fact, there is no verification of your Fine Homebuilding subscription whatsoever - all you have to do is create a NEW account in the app, with ANY email (that you can check a verification message for) and password, and once you click that confirmation link in that email you can sign into the app and read a couple years back of issues!
What happened here?! Did they have so much trouble getting it to work for paying subscribers that they just opened it up to anyone with a working email address (in other words everyone in 2023)?! Why are we paying for (quite costly, as far as magazines go) subscriptions to this magazine when anyone can install this app, sign up for free and read not just the current issue but the last two year’s worth?! I don’t know what they’re doing with all that subscription money, but they sure as heck aren’t putting even a small fraction of it into their app development. This is an embarrassment for an otherwise superb magazine.
*UPDATE*
You don’t even need to register or log in AT ALL. You can just install the app and you’re able to read the last year-and-a-half worth of back issues. Again, why are we paying for subscriptions when we can just read for free here???
Also, an IMPORTANT NOTE: The support email address listed in the app IS NOT the Fine Homebuilding support address listed on the website. I don’t know if the address in the app is intentionally wrong or just different, but emails to the address listed in the app go ignored/unanswered, while messages sent to the address listed on the website are actually read/replied to.
Beware!
That worked okay on the website.
Not great but okay.
But when I tried to look at archived issues from the iPad app it wanted me to pay!
Called support and they told this is how it works.
Unbelievable. I’m still in disbelief that this is true so if anyone knows otherwise I’d love to know.
The description says “if you are currently a print subscriber you can get access to digital editions FREE - - absolutely no extra cost “
They don’t point out that is only true for very recent editions!
The print magazine is wonderful but I’ll stay away from this nonsense until they come to their senses.
