Do not purchase.
Wonderful magazine content (and staff). Woefully-coded app. Crashes continuously, and now will not allow me access to the content I’ve paid for. Whoever coded the app needs fired. Go to the publisher & purchase directly.
What has happened to this app?
This has never been the easiest app to manage but now, October 2025, it has stopped working altogether! I have paid for a subscription but cannot view the issues I have already paid for. SOS has great content but they really need to get the app sorted, and soon. SOS - are you bothered about taking people's money without caring if your app works or not?
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Terrible App and experience
The app makes browsing SOS a real pain. As a matter of fact I stopped using it all together. It is meant to allow browsing downloaded content with ease. Instead is a real pain as I cannot get to read an issued magazine without crashing or requiring to download already downloaded content.
Great content, terrible app.
Why does the app always go to the home page every time you open it, and not remember where you were on last viewing. Even if you switch out and back for a minute it reloads the page, so if you were half way through an article it scrolls back to the top. Also, why does it always take such a long time on opening while “loading content”? What is it loading? The content is world class but the app is one of the most useless examples for reading content. Imagine the kindle app never remembering where you were in a book and having to remember yourself were you were the last time you were using it.
Updated app November 2023 even worse. Now every time I reopen it it takes 20 -30 to load and takes me back to the summary of available editions and when I click on a purchased edition it goes to the buy option and I have to restore previous purchases. Unbelievable that we wait 2 years for an update and it is even worse.
Updated app November 2023 even worse. Now every time I reopen it it takes 20 -30 to load and takes me back to the summary of available editions and when I click on a purchased edition it goes to the buy option and I have to restore previous purchases. Unbelievable that we wait 2 years for an update and it is even worse.
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Appalling App
I have been subscribing to and reading SOS for ever. I am getting to the point now, where I just can’t bear the experience I am having with the app. This is a music technology magazine and as a technology magazine, surely the SOS app should be stellar, like your competitors!
Not able to continue
I just downloaded the app today for the first time. I hadn't even realized you could read the magazine in the app instead of the clunky pdfs. It's all good but I noticed that whenever I minimize the SOS app to do something else, when I open it back up it takes me all the way back to the home menu, even though I was in the middle of a text. So now I have to figure out which text I was reading, find it in the list, find the spot in the text where I stopped.... Very inconvenient. I'm not sure if it's the app or my phone but if it's the former, it would be nice to get that fixed.
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Best audio magazine, terrible app.
The content is the best there is with amazing in depth reviews and tutorials (please write about Bitwig tips) but the app itself is so slow and buggy. Loading takes forever, pages sometimes not loading but have to quit or return home and reload and app looses where it was when iPad goes into sleep.
Such a shame…
The early versions of this app were fabulous. Fast downloads, great reading experience - totally like reading the magazine without the wait for it to arrive. The latest app is one of the worst apps I’ve used of any type! Download speeds are glacial, the user interface is dreadful and the advertising pages more easily open up the manufacturers website than flip to the next page. Simple solution: go back to the early version of the app! I persist because the magazine is good but the app is truly, utterly, beyond diabolical.
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Great app but when are we going to get bookmarks again?
As per the title - really miss this feature, otherwise the app is good.
new version even worst
The new version promised to be faster load up time. Nope even with a downloaded issue for offline reading it takes up to minute to be ready to read. Speaking of reading neither the old or new version just wont memories the last page Ive been on. So why all that yadiyada abot a new version when the simple things cant be fixed?
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Response is not a JSON string
Bought the digital sub from the SOS site and every time I try to log in to the app I get ‘response is not a JSON string’. I have tried different password styles, ie no weird characters etc. and still get the same error message. I have contacted the support, nothing back so far.
I hope this will be sorted out as I subscribed so I could download the .pdf but as they are giving the mag free at the moment there is no .pdf download for subscribers on the site.
No stars I’m afraid. 0
I hope this will be sorted out as I subscribed so I could download the .pdf but as they are giving the mag free at the moment there is no .pdf download for subscribers on the site.
No stars I’m afraid. 0
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Great mag, terrible app
Totally unable to log in using SOS account credentials. Fortunately I purchased the digital subscription directly from the website and so can access online & PDF versions, disappointed the app is unusable and don’t think it should be advertised as part of the subscription package if it clearly doesn’t work.
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Not good
I’ve just subscribed, I open the App Store and download the SOS app, enter my login info: “response is not a JSON string”
.....so nothing, simply not working. What a waste of £30 and my time so far
.....so nothing, simply not working. What a waste of £30 and my time so far
Useless
The best magazine, but sadly the worst app. Continually crashes if I can get it to load at all. Far too frustrating. Reinstalled - tried everything. Giving up. Don’t waste your time
Errors trying to get login and get the magazines
Basically, I suspect a modal pop up that says, “response is not a JSON string” then I login is a good thing. New subscriber and slightly disappointed at the process so far.
Worse than useless
I’ve lost so much time trying to work out how to read current issues with my current (“SOS Direct”, not in-app) subscription, but nothing works. I contacted support and they suggested resetting ALL my iPad settings. That didn’t help at all and it lost me a lot of time setting everything up again. Skip the app and just read via the web page.
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Almost Top Notch
The magazine continues to be absolutely wonderful and I can’t live without it. Been an avid reader since 1994. Best music production magazine by a country mile. I have an annual subscription and look forward to every single issue.
However... V 11.4.1 seems to have deleted the option to add personal bookmarks. Even though they were only accessible on a per issue basis (an option to view all bookmarks saved would be awesome) personal bookmarks were so useful. I often take a while to get through an issue and now often forget where I was up to.
Still no zoom facility. My eyesight is not the best so no zooming is poor, especially as it’s not that difficult to implement by all accounts.
This app could be magic but it’s lacking a little polish.
However... V 11.4.1 seems to have deleted the option to add personal bookmarks. Even though they were only accessible on a per issue basis (an option to view all bookmarks saved would be awesome) personal bookmarks were so useful. I often take a while to get through an issue and now often forget where I was up to.
Still no zoom facility. My eyesight is not the best so no zooming is poor, especially as it’s not that difficult to implement by all accounts.
This app could be magic but it’s lacking a little polish.
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Unusable - Continual crashes
iPad Air iOS 11.3 - Trying to log in to access my 1 year subscription, but I can’t even get halfway through putting my email address in before the app freezes... then an error pops up - "Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=1001 "The request timed out” plus a load of other junk, then promptly closes.
Top notch
Heroes in music technology since time immemorial. Thank you SOS!
Latest version continually crashes
Unfortunately the latest version of this app crashes continually on my iPad mini 1 running iOS 9.3. It is not possible to read more than a few lines or flick through a few pages without it crashing. Very frustrating as I recently renewed my subscription.
I have tried deleting and reinstalling the app several times (this has solved issues in the past) but nothing improves.
I have tried deleting and reinstalling the app several times (this has solved issues in the past) but nothing improves.
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