Vanity Fair Digital Edition App Reviews

I have a hard copy subscription. Why must I purchase online subscription? Am I overlooking something?

Is there a limit to the number of digital subscription that I can download on my iPhone? I did pay for them already right? Why do I have to keep re-downloading what I’d paid for already? Am I missing something?

But the app is incredibly bad. Always a problem signing in or getting new issues, and this is the same with every Condé Nast magazine online. I dropped my bon Appétit subscription because of this and may drop VF. Even the customer service page doesn’t work to ask questions!

The app crashes every ten minutes or so, most annoying!

A large portion of your subscribers use reading glasses. Yet VF steadfastly refuses to offer a real useable text zoom feature in the digital edition. Used to be there; worked poorly but there. Have been a user since the app was first rolled out and I am swiftly losing interest. Too much content elsewhere that is user friendly.

Article making fun of conservative and standing up for a liberal bully who followed customer in the street only to flip them off (and the article celebrates the bully). Article proceeded to bash the president of the US. God tells us to respect authority. They should be ashamed of the trash they write. VF preaches tolerance but they only tolerate you if your views are identical to theirs. I’ll be praying that the editors and writers will come to know the love and forgiveness that Jesus offers them. I hope that I have the opportunity to have coffee with them to politely and lovingly discuss our differences. Perhaps then they can at least stop their malicious attacks on people who stand up for their beliefs. So sad to see people living in America who declare that you only have freedom to your belief system so long as it’s exactly their belief system.

The app is terrible, the articles are impossible to read even by people with perfect vision: text size can not be adjusted

I haven’t been able to open the app since I upgraded my iOS.

I’ve updated. I’ve shut down and restarted my iPad (iOS 11.X). Nothing helps. I try to open Vanity Fair app (USA edition) and it was immediately shuts down. This is a new problem. HELP!

I lose all downloaded issues if I fully close the app. App can only download one issue at a time. Downloading stops if I leave the app. I am going back to paper issues until you get this fixed. Kindle app has been around for years without any of these issues. If you can’t bring yourself to spend the money to get a decent app, let some of your IT guys come to your Oscar party, maybe they will fix the bugs for free.

I’m about to delete the app and cancel my subscription. I got into VF for the articles that would pop up on Apple News. Good stuff. Ad free. News is getting full of ads now, and why I’m leaving it. So I’m getting all the apps from the source, but VF wants me to have the whole magazine, without a search menu, so I need to swipe through everything including ads to get to what I want. This is the bad kind of old school. The point of subscribing, on the digital era, is that you get to bypass the commercial system. Good luck with your format, sorry to leave the good writers you hire.

It's outright user-hostile to have such a bad experience for a device that is so nice to read on. Either this team is under-funded or they have some seriously flawed technologies. Or both I guess. What a wasted opportunity.

I use IPad Air2 with 8.1.1 iOS and I don't have any problems. I've stopped reading printed magazines some time ago after I have developed preference for ebooks on my Kindle. I'm glad, I have ordered E version of Vanity Fair. It was one of my favorite in the past. It is so convenient to have magazines, books, games in one device now.

This has gone from the best iPad magazine experience to just awful. No one reads this on an iPhone....really. I NEVER have even opened it on my various iPhones - and I have had a subscription since day one. Please let me use all of my iPad screen again. And this new interface is clunky at best. And I want all my old issues back without reloading them again. Sheesh..... (Addendum) oh, and could you have made this app even slower to download the content and start reading? One article at a time? And who in their right minds looks at a magazine and organizes content by "short reads, medium reads and long reads" with "helpful" estimates of "less than 5 minutes", "5 to 10 minutes" etc except someone who doesn't actually like to read and has the commitment to your product and the attention span of Donald Trump? This isn't a YouTube video. This just gets worse as I "learn" more about it. Cancellation is on the horizon. You need to fire whoever designed this and thought this was a good idea.

Why can't I download the whole issue anymore? I don't like having to download each article. I liked reading it like a magazine. I don't get the print copy anymore because I like to download the issues to read when traveling. Change it back!!

This app does not work! Won't upgrade the library. And I just renewed my subscription. What gives?

I have wasted hours trying to get this application to work. The login button was difficult to find. Once I was able to login, the app would only show purchasing options and did not have a download or view option.

Lost all my existing downloaded issues..... re downloaded the, to find some slim version of a magazine page. What a horrible layout and horrible reading experience.... fix this quick or I am cancelling......

This had worked great for years, and now, because my latest issue wouldn't load and I deleted and am now trying to re-install, it won't install! This is crap, I hope it's fixed soon, don't want to have to lug the magazine with me as I travel...

However still giving five stars because other magazines I read also don't offer this feature. But everyone should. Otherwise it's one of the best apps out there for a subscription.

I called Conde Nast Digital customer service and they confirmed that landscape mode has been DISCONTINUED PERMANENTLY on new issues of Vanity Fair for the iPad. Call them at 800-365-0635 and complain bitterly! Latest issues (Feb., Mar. 2015), won't switch to landscape mode on iPad, but older issues still do (within the same app). Looks like they're trying to save on programming by releasing same version of content on both iPhone and iPad, but it just won't do. The magazine is beautiful and I love it on the iPad, but reading it without landscape mode is just too awkward. Please bring it back!

Bought this app...it wouldn't let me sign in. tried over and over. tried the "lost password" thing. didn't work. start to think i must have bought a trial subscription by mistake. then i get an email (months later) from itunes saying "we're renewing your subscription." i write and say "i never got the first issue." 3 emails and 4 phone calls later to both VF and itunes and the answer is basically this "screw you." (it was a polite "screw you" but still...) they say can't give me refund. can't give me subscription. can't give me old issues...i am SOL. CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!

Impossible to navigate. App is way too heavy for its own good and takes forever to download. Depressing.

This update is a huge downgrade. Slow, impossible to navigate, no thumbnails, images cropped or missing, table of contents unreadable. Wow. Hard to believe anyone tested this or any halfway literate iPad app user would find this acceptable. I am going back to Zinio rather than getting this separate magazine app--at least they let you see the magazine with a decent experience.

Takes forever to download. The whole thing can be best described as digawonky.

I've tried and tried, over different OSes on my iPad, to get issues to download. But I'm constantly getting an "Error during download" message. Uninstalling and reinstalling haven't helped. Frustrating, and missing lots of issues.

Seriously? Amateurs. You guys and the bozos from LinkedIn should go bowling together. Keyboard-case iPad users won't be joining you. Here's a suggestion for future releases: don't break stuff that we're all used to.

For reasons unknown, VF has decided to permit digital viewing in portrait mode only. My iPad viewing preference is set up for landscape viewing. VF permitted landscape option in the past. Only the most crude digital magazines use portrait only. Sad to see VF going backwards. Whatever happened to choice?

I subscribe to Vanity Fair through iTunes and this app won't let me view any issues on the iPad air I can view the issues on my iPhone six but it's really hard to read a magazine on the tiny little screen this issue needs to be addressed immediately!

I'm very disappointed not to be able to read this magazine in landscape view. My favorite thing to do in the summer is to read VF on my iPad while on the beach, and I can't see my iPad in portrait view with my polarized sunglasses. Please fix this. Then, I'll go back up to a 5 star rating.

This is a terrible attempt by a "respected" publication at climbing into the digital age. Mr. Carter who is so vociferous in his many criticisms of others should look at himself and the horrible mess he has made here. I have been emailing for weeks to get my previous purchases restored on my new iPad and to gain access to my subscription to no avail. Shame on you for such dreadful customer service and for digitally degrading such a great legacy product.

I spent most of my time with this app trying to figure out how to cancel it. The quality of the app is good, but eventually I stopped reading it. Apple makes it overly confusing to cancel. I paid for a number of editions that I never read just because I had so much trouble trying to cancel.

All content gone. Can't update library. Do not upgrade to this version.

I love Vanity Fair as a the publication. The app, however, is not stable. I have to close the app and reopen it to download an article. Often, when I go back to the table of contents, the app will reload the article I just read rather than link to the newly selected article. I spend a lot of time having to do this. If it weren't for my love of Vanity Fair I would probably cancel my subscription becauseof the instability of the app.

I love the magazine and really enjoyed reading the digital version on my old iPad 3. I recently got a new iPad Mini 3 to use on my daily commute. But for some reason I cannot sign into my account on the Mini. I keep getting an error message (“authentication error”). I can sign into my account on my old iPad without any problems and have tried multiple times to get help from Vanity Fair’s support team with the problem with the Mini. But nothing seems to work. Since I can sign into my account on their web site and my old iPad, the problem seems to be a bug specific to the iPad Mini. If you have a Mini don’t bother with this app. It won’t work.

Looks like VF has gone to a portrait-only display for the app since February 2015. That's really too bad as the landscape orientation really showed off the great photography much better. As with everything I'm sure it was a cost-saving measure, but the magazine's design is weaker because of it.

Vanity Fair is a most excellent app. Runs like a Swiss watch on my old iPad1. If you're complaining about technical issues then your tablet is probably a Dell or other piece of junk. There are certain advantages to reading on the app. It's faster and easier, more organized.

Preferred previous format which was like paging through a real magazine.

I love Vanity Fair but I can't read it in landscape mode with the iPad app. Very frustrating. Shocking this hasn't been fixed.

I have been a big fan of this app. Over the years my annual apple subscription of VF moved from my iPad2, to iPhone 6 Plus, and now to iPhone 7 Plus. However, it is time for VF to address basic limitations in the app, if they want to keep their loyal customers. I would start with dynamic font size (why not take advantage of such a great option offered by IOS TODAY???). Book marks and landscape are long overdue futures, but the font size is an embarrassment by the end of 2016...

I made the mistake of updating this app. My previously purchased issues are all gone! Tried restore and it won't even show the issues I already own! I'm supposed to be able to download my archived issues at any time and now they don't exist!! I'm very upset!!

Won't let me download it and by the time I do my free subscription will be expired

I agree with a few other people here that I am missing the zoom feature. If you cannot do that at least let us adjust the size of the text like in a library app.

Hard to read for the older crowd as you can’t zoom to enlarge the print. Heard it could be done until August update. S disappointing

Terrible. Used to be able to zoom in on the text in the previous version of the app. Now can only zoom in on the images/ads. Please please fix the app to enable zooming again on the text!

Hard to believe that Conde rolled out the same junk app that they did for GQ. I guess they want to get all of their mags on the same terrible platform. SLOW downloads, flaky reliability, poor layout. A downgrade in every way from the prior app.

A great app ruined. This is by far the worst iteration Vanity Fair has ever come up with. Please go back. It was great. This is completely unusable. Hard to read and layout is complicated. Hard to download anything. The New Yorker got it right. Vanity Fair?... not so much.

Who designed this? Was this done by a disgruntled employee? Given the horrible liberal slant, it is only because of the rare non-political article that seems interesting that I keep my subscription. However if THIS is what constitutes progress, count me out. Is there a zero star choice, or a negative option?

No improvement here. Basically it's DOA.

This "upgrade" of the magazine app is a travesty for readers. Obviously not designed by someone who reads the actual magazine. Cropping the pages to partial page size, taking away the keeping of your place while mid-read of an article or edition are just a few of the ridiculous "upgrades". I can't always finish an article, now I have to remember which months edition I'm on and then search for the article and then finally find my page. Seriously??? Bring back the previous version of this app. You are making me completely regret my "paperless" subscription to this magazine that I've loved for 30 years.

Huge black bars on the left and right, shrinking the magazine. I can't download issues before my subscription started. That makes no sense. I can for all issues of any magazine I have a subscription for on my iPad, including other Condé Nast mags like GQ. Great way to lose a customer when my sub runs out this year.

NOBODY LIKES THIS FORMAT! Listen to your readers. NO-one reads on an iPhone. Swallow your pride, put your tail between your legs and get your format and readership back. It'll only hurt for a sec and you can put it past you. Considered it a FAILED experiment. (I'll keep cutting down trees and keep the physical issue thank you very much). If that goes, so does my subscription. It was good while it lasted. Reading VF is (was) an experience. Now it's just a rag and a drag. VERY Disgruntled in LA U.G.H.

This used to be such a great app until this latest update. My God, what were you thinking?? Nothing works. My library is gone. The layout is idiotic. You can't access your VF account details from it. It only restores purchases through iTunes ... well, guess what ... my subscription isn't through iTunes; it was directly with Conde Naste, and it doesn't recognize that anymore!

Stupidly, I updated the app without first checking the other reviews. Consequently, I was unable to read any of my issues while I was on vacation for a week. Please bring back the former layout!

This update removed all of my saved magazines while I was on a trip and found once on the airplane I had nothing available. I am now re-downloading the issues that were lost, but it is taking FOREVER to download each issue- about 5-7 minutes per. I'm sorry I updated.

So glad you've gone back to the library format by which we can see at a glance what we have and have not downloaded.

This update, 5.1, is regression.

Thank you Vanity Fair for bringing back the previous format! I did not like the new format because it was distracting. I was gonna delete the app, but you bringing back what many of us enjoyed, I think I'll keep it!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, VF, for returning the app to the original format. My one-star review (below) is now a five-star review. Annie Leibovitz's photos are gorgeous again! ------------------ I was so sad to discover that the update to this app took away the gorgeous full-screen clarity that I loved so much. I used to show off my iPad Pro by pulling up a Vanity Fair digital cover to ooh and ahh over (and sold a couple subscriptions to the magazine in the process). No more. I lost all my downloaded magazines, and the new downloads are fuzzy and cropped. Truly the worst upgrade to an app I've ever experienced. What a shame for such a great mag. I hope this isn't indicative of financial problems at VF!

How could they take such a good app and s**** it up so badly? Luckily I have not given up the printed edition, so I will read that until they get this app straightened out. It's the worst!

I was one of those who squawked when the last update came out so its only right to amend the rating and say "Thanks for listening!" I'll change it to a five star rating when you stop whining about the president. You're starting to sound like a petulant toddler.

Thank you for listening to us and returning the app to the way it use to be! Whoever came up with this new version should look for a new career. Please bring back the last version. Lost all my previously save editions, when going back to article, have to scrolled back from front. Update is total failure. After all the bad reviews, Vanity Fair, go fix it!

The new version lacks all intuitiveness, user-friendliness and most of all, it lacks all my saved back issues and bookmarks. What the hell? It is nearly impossible for people like me who subscribed through the app (aka via iTunes) to figure out how to log in and get all the old content back. Then once you do figure it out, all previous issues only fill about 80% of the screen. I want my bookmarks back. I want to use the entire screen of my iPad. I want to start reading where I left off. These are basic app functions which should not be problems for Condé Nast in 2017.

Having the previous version 2.0.44 for so long and being a solid app that worked well on my iPad Pro 9.7, this ver 5 is horrid. First, it won't let me download any issues, keeps telling me "No Interner Connection" which is not true, as it lets me login to authenticate my subscription status. Plus, every other app connects to the internet without issue, even after 2 restsarts and testing on both wifi and LTE. All of my downloaded Vanity Fair issues were deleted with the update. The layout and UI is useless. Good thing I had a backup of the ver 2.0 of the app. I installed that and am back and happy reading VF issues again. Revert to the previous version.

I still find it irritating that I have to click on photo to read caption and see other photos. I am not sure why it cannot be imbedded in article.

Every other review is a one-star review and I am adding mine to it. Everyone hates it and a frequent complaint is the letterbox on either side of the iPad. It seems to be formatted for an iPhone. Who reads a magazine on their iPhone?!? THIS UPDATE NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!!

The layout is awful. Gone is the ability to easily see what content has been downloaded, and that's if you can even download content.

I have subscribed to this magazine for 40 years and I have used the digital app since it came out. Please explain what h*** you are doing with this new app. No place holder, impossible navigation, loss of library. You must be kidding! Please bring back the old app or I'm done.

TERRIBLE new layout. I can't believe how you spoiled a great looking magazine on the ipad: has anyone in the design team actually used it? Used to love how it looked, the black bars and artificially cropped pages look awful. Please go back to the previous look.

The new version is worst magazine app I have seen. Even the table of contents was created for a child. When/if you find an article and have to leave it when you return you are not back where you were. And it is painfully slow. I am cancelling my subscription.

Times out when downloading back issues.

The new iPad app is a significant downgrade from the prior experience. Did you actually user-test with people outside of the company before releasing? You've taken away much of the great functionality and implemented features that do not make sense...(e.g. if you have a single image for an article why are you requiring me to expand it to see the caption...it was much better when it was displayed on the article directly previously). I'm considering going back to the paper magazine.

This is the worst! Loved the older version. I agree with every previous review! Nothing to like about this updated version. Why Vanity Fair, why?

Thank you for bringing back the older, better app and making Vanity Fair Digital great again. I can once again enjoy my monthly routine of reading VF cover-to-cover, as I have been for the past 15 years. --------------------------------------------- The new version is awful. It downloads at the speed of sloths and only displays on about 2/3 the available screen width. Did Trump design this or pay Russia to hack you? Bring back our old, reliable Vanity Fair App, please!

It good to know VF recognized their mistakes and rolled back to tried and true. Next issue will prove whether its works as well as it originally did.

Navigation is impossible! I had to close the issue each time I wanted to see the table of contents. What about someone who like to read from front to back? If you're a subscriber you don't need someone to explain that the features take longer to read than the more fluffy stuff. I'm lucky the August paper issue is on its way. I can't read this.

Love the magazine but this app only works in portrait mode so you can't use the iPad stand and the story selection screen has no pictures or useful description of the articles and organizing them by read time is not useful, why not by category; business, politics, technology? I prefer using the web site, thanks.

Sometimes things are best left alone. Thanks for going back! I'm glad I didn't take my iPad with me on my trip. While it would have been nice to read VF on the plane, I would have been frustrated by the revised app. So I only recently saw the new version of the app. Instantly hated it. I couldn't remember which issue I was reading. Tapping on a section at a time was ridiculous. The download speed was slow. It takes some time to download the entire magazine, but the revised app was not an improvement. That was my very brief experience with the revised app.

I loved reading Vanity Fair before this! This new version got rid of my old downloaded copies and makes it difficult to read. Please allow subscribers to download the old version for iPad. I was so disappointed on my recent trip that I couldn't read My downloaded Vanity Fair on my iPad.

The narrow scrolling view is awful (that's not a paging, magazine feel read at all), it's incredibly slow, the layout and design are totally different to the print version, and can I say again, the narrow view that doesn't fit properly? Ugh. PLEASE listen to your readers and roll back to the previous version. This one is terrible.

Kudos to vanity fair for fixing the download and library issues. The readability is still compromised by the lack of an article-ordered table of contents (organizing by length of article is both silly and detracts from the experience). Editors and designers invest a lot of energy in creating the right balance and flow of articles in a magazine and this totally dishonors that. And in an attempt to share content with phone sized screens, the large fonts and limited white space on an iPad make it the reading experience unpleasant. So while I appreciate the responsiveness to all of the feedback on downloading, they still have a way to go to re-earn the 5 stars I gave them a year ago. ------------previous feedback associated with a '1'------------ I have waited over 40 mins for the current issue to download, and it's still not done. I lost 3 yrs of downloaded copies with the 'upgrade'. I will never be able to restore them all at this rate. If the downloaded version looks anything like the web version that I can (sort of) browse while trying to download, I won't want to read it on my iPad anyway. It's totally lost the magazine feel, as well as the ability to leave and come back to the same place and it now has ridiculous 'adds' like clustering articles by how long they think it takes me to read them vs following the flow of the magazine. The font is too large and there's no white space at the margins. I switched to the iPad version a couple of years ago and have been donating my paper copies, but if this isn't addressed, I'll delete the app and go back to the paper version. It's that bad. Please don't ruin the New Yorker reading experience by making similar changes to that app as well. Having to abandon the iPad version of that weekly will be even more painful.

The latest version of the app is terrible. If I'm out of the app for more than an hour, I lose my place and am taken back to the cover page when I reopen the app. And, unlike prior versions, I can't easily scroll through the magazine to find where I left off. The whole interface isn't particularly user-friendly, either. Based on the number of negative reviews, can VF please do something already?!

I enjoy reading hard copy (cover to cover) but find it advantageous to also use my iPad when I don't want to wear reading glasses since I was able to maximize text, so am very disappointed that feature disappeared as of August issue. I also miss the lack of pagination. It was helpful to me to track where I left off since there's no bookmark function. And when I am traveling or in a waiting room, I could select which articles I had time to read based on page length. Sure hope that more digital options and improvements are coming.

This app was great when it allowed me to download and read articles. Now it’s useless. No idea why it stopped working. Maybe because I don’t have an iPhone X? (I know-peasant.)