iPad FAQ

GENERAL

Why is Intelligent Life doing an iPad edition? Because the iPad is an excellent medium for magazines—good for reading and great for photography. As our editor says, “The iPad is both a library and a lightbox.” For Intelligent Life, which is available widely around the world but not universally, it’s a chance to reach readers in places where we are not on the newsstand—including America. Download it here.

What is the relationship between the app and the magazine? The app is, in effect, an Intelligent Life shop. Download that and you will have an Intelligent Life icon on your screen. If you tap the icon, you will be in the app and can download an edition of the magazine.

Is the iPad edition the same as the print edition? Almost exactly. It has the same regular sections and articles in virtually the same order. The iPad edition appears slightly later, so we have removed the odd event that has already been and gone from “This Season”, our arts calendar. We have made tiny adjustments in the editing to let the pages fit in their new home.

So have you just shoved the print pages up there? No. Every page has been subtly redesigned to work on the iPad, in both landscape and portrait modes, by Intelligent Life’s art director, Graham Black, and his deputy, Martin Lovelock. Advertisements from the print edition do not appear in the iPad edition, as the sole advertiser is Credit Suisse.

Is there any interactivity? Yes. There are film clips to watch and music clips to listen to, and whenever you see a red button, there is something to do—such as making a picture bigger or switching to slideshow mode. But we have not added bells and whistles just for the sake of it. This is a magazine.

What is Intelligent Life anyway? It’s an acclaimed quarterly magazine, published by The Economist, covering life, culture, style and places. It publishes original features, memoirs, profiles and other articles by contributors including Economist staff, leading journalists from elsewhere, well-known authors such as Julian Barnes, Douglas Coupland, Carlos Fuentes and Margaret Drabble, and prominent photographers such as Tim Flach and Jillian Edelstein. Intelligent Life is available on the newsstand in most parts of the world (price £4.95, E7.50 or equivalent) and by subscription everywhere. It is edited in London by a small team headed by Tim de Lisle, who was recently named Editor of the Year (Lifestyle magazines) by the British Society of Magazine Editors. There are also foreign-language editions in Serbia, Portugal and Lithuania, published in association with local publishers.

Is The Economist on the iPad too? Yes. It has an edition for the iPad and iPhone, which can be downloaded every week from Thursday evening. It is free to The Economist’s print subscribers. 

What’s the relationship with More Intelligent Life? More Intelligent Life is our website, updated every weekday, which features web-only content (articles and blog posts) as well as material from the magazine drizzled out through the three months that each issue spends on the newsstand. The iPad edition is the print edition and doesn’t include web-only content. To visit More Intelligent Life, touch the bottom of the screen at any time and the word WEBSITE will appear the right-hand end of the navigation bar; tap this and you will go straight to the site (if you are connected to the internet).

PRICING

What does it cost? Nothing at the moment. The winter edition, like its two predecessors, is supported by Credit Suisse, which has enabled us to make it free. In due course, we expect to charge for each issue as we do in print. The app itself will remain free.

DOWNLOADING

How long does it take to download the app? It should be a few seconds, but may take longer.

How long does it take to download an edition? It may take several minutes. But then the same is true of going to the newsagent, so please bear with us.

What happens if the download stops halfway through? Some readers had this problem with our launch issue (autumn 2010). For the winter edition, the software has been updated and you should find that downloading resumes at the place where it left off.

Is there a way of bookmarking articles to return to later?
No. But if you leave the magazine to do something else on your iPad and then come back later, it should open at the last page you were reading. 

I've had problems downloading previous editions. Have you fixed them?
Yes. We had some technical problems with delivering the previous issue which we have now addressed; and we've made the file size much smaller to make downloading faster. Please try again!

The app seems to take a while to display the pages sharply. What can I do?
You must have the old version of the app. Please delete it and download the new version; it's much quicker.

I get an 'unknown error' message after downloading the app/magazine. What do I do? If you are still running iOS 3, then try restarting your iPad. If that does not work, please delete and the reinstall the app, and then redownload the issues. If you are running iOS 4.2, restart the app by double-clicking the home button on your iPad to reveal your recently opened apps. Tap and hold the Intelligent Life icon until it starts to wobble, then touch the red close icon (a minus sign in the top left-hand corner of the icon). Then click the home button to return to the home screen, navigate to the Intelligent Life app and tap it to reopen it.

How do I delete issues of Intelligent Life from my iPad? To delete previous issues of Intelligent Life click ARCHIVE on the basic navigation bar. In the archive touch and hold down the cover of the issue you want to remove. It will gray out and a black circle with a white cross will appear in the corner. Tap that and the issue should disappear.

NAVIGATION

How do you navigate the pages? To get from one article to the next, swipe from right to left anywhere on the page—much like turning the page of the print edition. To scroll down within the same article, flick the downwards arrow (white on a grey block) in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. When that arrow turns into a blob, you have reached the last page of the article.

How do you get back to the contents? Touch the bottom of the screen, and a dark-grey strip will appear with five words on it:

SHOP   ARCHIVE   COVER   CONTENTS   WEBSITE

This is your basic navigation bar. Touch CONTENTS and the grey strip will expand to show you thumbnails of the page you are on and its neighbours. Flick the strip to left or right and you can move through the articles and tap whichever one you want to read next.

How do you get in from the cover? Two ways: either swipe to go to the next page, or tap one of the cover headlines to go straight to the article concerned.

SUBSCRIPTION

Is it possible to subscribe? On the iPad, not yet. In print, very much so—click here for our latest subscription offer.

FEEDBACK

Do send us your comments. E-mail us at intelligentlife@economist.com

Download Intelligent Life on your iPad here.

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