Seattle Times Print Replica

This app exists, because it has to. It has to exist to bridge the gap between the generation who grew up getting the paper on their doorstep every morning and this who never want to cut down another tree for paper again. It’s actually a great idea because it retains the format of the printed edition providing continuity and ease of reference. Poorly executed comes in the form of constant crashes, non consistent publicly times (I’ve waited til 8am before some editions are ready!!), issues being logged out, locked issues because credentials are expired, links within pages that do not go to the proper article. Horribly executed are the pages that sometimes do magical disappearing acts when you select them or resize improperly making the paper unreadable with no fix coming later. Just in recent version as of this writing if you click on an email to contact the paper it just crashes the app. Why? Because iOS 13.2 is out and this app was last updated 3 years ago!! I understand money is tight at papers, but this is like firing half of your delivery carriers and expecting to increase circulation! I love the idea of a print replica but fix it. Make it work and take care of it. It exists because it has to....not as a labor of love and that’s unfortunate.

The new app is dramatically different, and on the whole, I’m not happy with it. What’s good: -Search capability -Snappy performance What’s bad - Print format only available by paging through pages two at a time - there is no way to rapidly navigate back and forth to different sections (like the upper tab interface on the old app) -If you select an article, it then displays in non-print edition format -Many times the graphics or photos associated with an article do not display when you select that article (imagine a front page story continued on page 11, with a graphic on page 11. You get to page through to page 11 and see the graphic, or to select the article, and read it in non-print-edition format, often without the graphic). Neither choice is good. -No way to navigate through the paper without going one page at a time -When an article starts on one page, and finishes on another, you have to manually flip through many pages -The app is optimized for portrait mode – I use my iPad (and prefer) landscape mode -You can’t readily flip pages until you zoom out to 100% (but you have to zoom in to read the print of any article). So, flipping pages is a multi-step process (zoom out, flip, zoom in). UGH. -The search feature is available at the top level, but not when you’re in today’s paper or in an article. ARGH.

I’ve used this for approximately 6 weeks now. Overall, it’s a nice improvement, but still with some minor flaws—and one major flaw... I often download the paper onto my iPad before I have to go offline. Multiple times now, after having downloaded and then going offline, I attempt to open the paper and it shows it has not been downloaded. This is extremely frustrating if you’re say, embarking on a 5 hour flight planning to read the Sunday paper. And most recently, after I downloaded the paper and went offline, when I clicked to open the paper, it asked me to sign in. But I was offline, so I could not sign in! Please fix this!! Other minor issues are the “section tabs” that don’t always bring you to the correct section. Especially now with some sections combined (i.e. Business). I also miss being able to click the “see STORY, A13” that takes me to the continuation of the story.

I love this app for use on my ipad. It makes it easier for me to scan the pages as they would be laid out in the daily paper, read all those that interest me and not find myself down the rabbit hole that happens with the email digest or website. But my biggest problem with both Print Replica and now the ST website is that no matter what I do, every time I try to give a thumbs up or post a comment to an article, I end up in an endless loop telling me I have to sign in to comment. I sign in and try again, and again it fails. There seems to be no way to “stay signed in”. Obviously many others are able to comment, but I can only do so from my laptop, which I only use at work, not at home. It’s a super frustrating bug that has existed for quite some time. I really hope it can be fixed.

Two stars only because you *can* actually read the paper. That said, about 70% of the time I open the app it requires me to log in, and 100% of the time I tap on an article it takes me somewhere other than the start of that article. Usually it’s the bottom of the page, requiring me to scroll back up to the top. The same thing happens when I tap the “continued on page...” link. It will take me to that page, but it will be somewhere in the middle or the bottom of the page rather than at the start of where that article continues. Extremely frustrating... I recently wiped my iPad clean and installed everything fresh (not restoring anything from a backup) and the app behavior hasn’t changed. I like the replica format, but wish The Times would move to Press Reader instead of Olive as it’s a far superior app.

Twice this week the morning paper wasn’t available online until later in the day -not sure how much later, but it still wasn’t there at 9 AM. Even though I am a long-time monthly subscriber, I am required to re-sign in at least once a week, often more. Today I experienced another of the common problems: the paper is available to a point (for my husband it was page 4, for me it was through the opinion page) and when you flip to the next page it says loading, but it never does load, even if you close and reopen the app. They may not be putting the resources into the mobile app to get people to go back to print, but frankly we are talking about cancelling our subscription totally. A morning paper provides yesterday’s news so we don’t get much value out of the paper anyway and these irritations from a lousy app are the last straw.

What happened to the Sections feature with the new update, specifically in the Sunday paper? I recently subscribed to the digital issue only. I am disappointed with the new update of the app for various reasons. There are improvements in individual article content. It is not as screwed up as it used to be. But the Sunday paper has 116 digital pages. Since only some sections of the paper are of interest to me, now I have to scroll through 116 pages to get what I want? That’s not acceptable. On an iPad Mini the former version was more pleasing to the eye and easier to use. The only thing it needed was closer attention to actual article content.

It was there yesterday afternoon, and then it disappeared, never to return even after today's paper was loaded to the app. One other suggestion... When I load the paper thru the app, and click on comics... It should take me to the front page of the comics. Instead I have to choose some other option on the page, to open the newspaper in that section, then page forward 2 pages in order to get to the start of the actual comics. That's a lot of user entry that isn't necessary, and I would imagine others feel similarly. Thx!

Thank you for providing iPhone support in this new version. However, the app is missing some things that would make it even better. If one taps on an article, a non-typeset version of the story displays. Quite often this version will contain formatting errors which I find annoying. For that reason, I usually zoom in on a story to read it. Missing from this version are the story continuation links. Now one must manually flip pages to continue a story. In prior versions of the app, one could click on these links to quickly flip to the correct page. What used to take one app gesture now might take dozens of app gestures on the part of the user— really annoying. Finding the page where a story continues can also be problematic. Which page is B4? The app only lists serial page numbers. Page numbers that are more descriptive would be helpful; i.e. “Page 20 of 124, B4 Sports.” Looking forward to a future app version that removes these annoyances.

Recently, it has become more and more annoying. I see from other comments that I’m not alone. I’m talking about the e-paper’s availability. It’s 6:40am Sunday morning. No electronic paper. I’m reading the hard copy instead. The comment about flipping to part two of an article and winding up at the bottom of it rather than the top remains after more than two years. I think the Times wants hard copy subscriptions but I’ve moved away from that and don’t want to go back. This increasing unreliability is most annoying. Nothing has been done to update the app in two years. It’s time to renew for another 90 days. I’ll renew one last time and if this continues to get worse, well part company after 24 years.

Found this app while looking for real news sources (sick of news apps just reposting twitter snips). I was a current subscriber to the times paper edition. Downloaded the app, it found my subscription easily, and I get full print editions now! Including back copies. The app is great, with digital features overlays to the print, like links to pages, and article continuations, and even an amazing feature to blow up a print article to a digital version for great font and readability (just double click). Very well written app, great simple software .

I have read the Seattle times since 1974 and moved to reading it online when the first print replica came to my iPad. It was never great but this new version is a real adventure. You never know how you will have to navigate from from day to day. Sometimes you can get lucky and a navigation bar appears, not always complete, but it’s there. Other days, as others have mentioned, you have to scroll through the whole paper. I also read the Wall Street Journal on line and suggest Seattle Times ask them for help putting together a good on-line reading experience.

I’m not a fan of the new, revised print replica app. I understand the basic concept of making the app look and behave more like a magazine; there are several magazines that I read online. But. This is a newspaper, not a magazine. Bring back the links to articles continued from one page to another; I like reading an article all the way through, and scrolling through the pages is tedious. Also bring back headings, so the reader can quickly find a section: Business, Opinion, Mix, Sports. I’d have given the old app 4 stars because of the need to log on so often, as other readers have commented. With the new changes I mention, this new format would earn 5 stars from me.

I was excited to try the “new” print replica app, since the old one hadn’t been updated in years. I’ve been using it for a week or so. They have the right idea with this new version, but, sadly, it crunches on my iPad battery so hard that the back gets very hot and battery life races toward zero. The previous version did not do that. I hope it’s just a bug that they can fix. Until then I’ll be going back to the web version. It behaves properly and has almost the same functionality when reading the paper.

For the last month or so, very difficult to get the current paper to load. Sometimes rebooting the device works, sometimes deleting app, then reinstalling works, sometimes you just have to wait till later in the day to read the ‘morning’ paper. Very disappointed in the attention given to services for digital customers.

I take the print edition, so I only use the Print Replica app when away from home. The PR version was always marginal - slow to load, login required sporadically, sensitive to touch on an iPad, etc. The recent “update” made it horrible. I can’t advance to the next page without scrolling through all the intervening pages. It’s easier to open the digital version, which I don’t like. VERY slow to load. When I leave the first section to go to Comics in the Sports section, it can take a minute to load. The developers should look at the Wall Street Journal for an intuitive, fast, user friendly digital version of a newspaper.

I have had this app for years and pay money for access to it, but it rarely works lately. The app thinks that I have signed out and so I have to sign back in and even after I sign back in, it does not download the latest issue, so I quit the app and re-launch the app and then it thinks that I have to sign in again, and on and on and on. Lately, I have taken the step of deleting the app every day and reinstalling it so that it forces me to login from the start, but now that’s not even working as it tells me that the server is not responsive. This is really shameful service. Be better Seattle Times

I like the app for the main purpose—reading news reports—especially tapping on a story to get a larger print version with continuous flow (no navigating to another page in the paper to read the entire story). But I have to take photos of the puzzles and get to edit mode to use my Apple Pencil to complete them. It works for KenKen, but is cumbersome for the NYT crossword. Please add this functionality to your app!

App used to work fine for me, but over the past couple of weeks, it has been inconsistent in displaying the current day’s issue (as others have complained of), refuses to allow signing in, sometimes works again after repeatedly quitting app or reinstalling app. We went to online only access because the print edition is way too expensive but will cancel this too, if problems aren’t fixed. And people wonder why newspapers are dying? No one is going to pay for something that can’t be accessed.

I subscribe to the Tacoma News Tribune & Olympian eReplica apps. Despite content overlap, at least the content is downloaded. I have excellent wifi speeds with my Orbi mesh network, getting download speeds over 200 mbps, but more than half the time the Seattle Times Print Replica hangs up downloading a majority of their individual pages. It just sits there with the download box for each page and one sits and sits and sits without any movement. I pay for this? One would think with Seattle being a hotbed of people with tech knowledge, the Seattle Times could have a seamless app, but it appears Tacoma & Olympia hire more knowledgeable tech-types. I have tried to contact their web support and just nothing has happened to improve the app's performance. Looks like their last upgrade was over a year ago. Don't waste your time on this app.

I try to use this app on the rare occasion that my paper doesn’t get delivered. It used to be that it wouldn’t recognize my password, so I would reset it, and then it would work. Until the next time. Now, it won’t recognize my password, like before, but when I select the link to reset my password, it just crashes. I delete and reinstall the app. Same thing, it crashes again. If the Seattle Times offers this app to paid subscribers it should actually work. It doesn’t.

New print replica app does not email articles properly as old app did. Subject line lists page number, notvarticle name; when you click the link it doesn’t go to the article but to the front page of current edition, not the one in the link, and where you have to log in again. Ridiculous! Then when I want to copy a part of the article to save I cannot get the function to work either. Bring back the prior version. It worked very well.

This is a great app! Yes, there are a couple of bugs right now (repeated asks for login, link jumps to bottom of the continued article instead of the top). But this is still an incredibly convenient way to read the newspaper, whenever we want and wherever we are.

Oy...ready to give up on this app. So many times it fails to load, telling me I’m not authorized, or is not available for hours, or gets stuck on the last issue. I gave up on the hard copy because the delivery person refused to get the paper delivered by the specified time. We still see him driving around our neighborhood at 6:30 when the paper is guaranteed to be here at 0500. Oh well, award winning journalism is the brag point but delivery, wether hard or e-copy....pretty darned lame.

Wow...... You finally updated the app where the user can finally go back to past issues. Only took 2 long months to do so! I can't believe no one else said anything about it. iOS 10 for some reason would only let the user navigate to old issues, but you couldn't go back to the present day edition, even a force quit wouldn't make it work.

Well done pdf implementation of the printed newspaper. Very easy to navigate through the articles, and see the complete layout of the newspaper. I prefer this app to the other Seattle Times app because I don’t have to suffer the animated ads.

The summer 2020 update to this app has made the articles nearly unreadable. Paragraphs basically no longer exist - pretty much every sentence is it’s own paragraph; typos change the meaning of statements or just make them inscrutable; and there’s no longer an easy way to skip between sections. I like browsing the articles in the order and format intended by the editors, but unfortunately the app delivers the content so poorly that it often negates the intention of the authors. Very disappointing.

Like the print look. I’ve grownup with newspapers and still subscribe to the daily Times because I think it valuable and need. This app needs to just be updated and looked after. The login issues are annoying but not a deal breaker. Seattle Times this can be a winning app with a bit of time spent on keeping it updated and promoted.

Downloaded the paper so I could read it on the plane. But failed because I didn’t have internet. What good is download if you have to be connected to read? Can’t skip to page 110 if you want to start from where you left off because you couldn’t open the replica without internet. Worse still, it forced me to download again.

This issue has been fixed. Don't good back in the archive because there's no coming forward. I've had little complain about this app; it has done what I want it to do. That changed today. While, I can go back through the archives, I can't come come forward. I've mirrored the action on going back through the archive by swiping up in many little cations. I've tried tapping, still no joy. The only way I've found to move forward through the archive is to reinstall the app. How inconvenient. iOS 10 specific? iPad Mini 2 16 gb iOS 10.0.1 App 2.6.3

Why on God’s green earth (getting less green thanks to climate-infused fires) did The Seattle Times tinker with its prior iteration of its app?? It cuts out completely; off-line reading is hit-and-miss before you are told to get back online; photos are not sharp; getting to another page to finish an article is WAY harder, annoying than with the prior version. Very poor quality experience for readers who are PAYING THE TIMES a subscription fee to be frustrated as they TRY to read.

I like the print replica format though I share the complaints raised elsewhere regarding navigation. My main complaint and the main reason for the 2-star is the excessive battery drain. An hour reading the paper will drain over 1/2 of my battery and leaves the iPad case excessively hot. I have confirmed with Apple support my battery health is in good shape.

I’m a Seattle times subscriber and I am really enjoying having the print replica on my phone. I was a bit skeptical given the poor reviews but it’s been working without any glitches for me.

Glitches occurring more and more frequently. It sometimes partially loads and other times won’t open at all. We try everything even deleting app and starting over but it seems if the app is not going to cooperate it’s done. This is not worth what the paper costs! And the joke is we are supposed to get the printed Sunday paper and it also is not reliable. This week it arrived on Monday!

Withe the previous version you could easily skip sections that were of no interest. Although this newest version clams to keep this with a table of contents, I can’t find it, so using Sunday editions as an example, you’re required to page through the magazine sections even if you want to skip them.

I like the print replica format. The app sometimes locks up and requires a delete and reload. Any touch on my iPad will open an article in another window - much to sensitive. Still the app is better than consuming paper

I signed up for Seattle Times using my Google login. The Print Replica app is “unsupported” when attempting to ‘Sign in with Google’. Exact message copy and pasted below Couldn’t sign you in This browser or app may not be secure. Learn more Try using a different browser. If you’re already using a supported browser, you can try again to sign in.

I’ve used this app to read the paper for several years. At first it was pretty good. My wife reads the hard copy and I like the iPad copy. It seems to be getting more glitchy. It used to load the daily paper by 5:30 PDT. Now pages are slow to load even by 8:00, if at all. What is apparent to me, by reading other reviews, is that the developer is not addressing the issues. That leads me to believe that they don’t care. Usually when I’ve used an IOS app that I’ve seen problems with, the developer addresses the issues in a response to the reviewer. In this app, I see nothing from the developer. Frustrating app.

This app frequently crashes. It also annoyingly asks for a sign on even when paper has been saved for offline viewing. I like to download the paper for later reading since I’m frequently not in data coverage when I have a break and can read it. How am I supposed to sign on if I’m offline? Ridiculous..

Won’t download next days issue and also says can’t find server part of the time. What’s going on this last week I can’t Down load 90% of the time the next days issue yet I can stream all other Apps and have high speed at my home for other Apps and videos

For some reason every time I open this app, it now states that I'm not recognized and I have to log in. When I try to do this it takes me to something called olive reader. I then close that and I'm now back to the newspaper. It didn't really need me to log in, but I need to go through this extra step every day.

...I don't. Today it won't download the new edition, even after rebooting my iPad. I miss links to continued stories on later pages. In Seattle, of all places, we should have the best app to read our only newspaper but we have fallen short at a time we need new, enthusiastic readers. This can be and should be fixed soon!

This was updated in July and now I can’t view articles individually. Called their Seattle line and found they are aware and working the Apple iPad issue. They got it fixed but it broken again. Please fix this.

Occasionally I have a re-install the app, like right now, but it performs beautifully when is open

Great idea but the app is totally useless. My intention is to download the newspaper onto my iPad and then read it during my commute. I can successfully download the newspaper, have it displayed in My Content, but when am offline and return to the app, the paper is gone. I would expect better. Hugely disappointed.

This is so annoying. When I open the app I get a sign in message. When I hit that it flips to another page and then back. This has been going on for weeks. This app needs an update!

I like the app. But when if you want to download the paper and read it on the plane or someplace without wifi, you can’t. Doesn’t make sense and defeats the purpose.

I can’t even get to first base by logging into this app without it crashing. Maybe The Seattle Times developers should take a long look at the excellent virtual newspaper app used by the Spokesman-Review in Spokane. You folks at The Seattle Times should be ashamed to have such a crappy app representing your brand.

Gee Seattle Times, would think since I pay for the electronic version of your newspaper I could actually read it? This app fails to load the current days edition over 50% of the time meaning when you open the app, previous days editions are shown but not the current day.

Constantly getting the Unauthorized notification. When you click on it to log in it spins around and then opens. Numerous times a month the latest addition is unavailable or server is unavailable. I have tried rebooting my iPad and someone suggested deleting and reloading the app....neither works.