Virgin Project iPad only magazine out now, but glitchy

November 30, 2010 12:45 pm

Categories: Apps & Software, Gadgets News Tags: branson, iPad, magazine, project, virgin

Richard Branson’s iPad only magazine Project launched today, and is available as a free app through the App Store. Inside the app you purchase issues for the budget price of £1.79. We’d like to tell you about how great it is, about how we’ll all be subscribing soon enough, but we haven’t been able to successfully download an issue, despite trying for the past few hours.

We’re not the only ones either. Robert Andrews from PaidContent.org has experienced problems too. While our Project magazine download has failed repeatedly, he tweeted: “Project refuses to download to iPad, iPad says “sync me with iTunes”, I get cable and comply. Now Project says won’t work on my iPad OS.”

Whether the problems are down to an overload of folks downloading Project magazine on their iPads we can’t yet tell. But yesterday, the magazine was described as a “living” magazine, which would be receiving updates throughout the month, in which case it should be geared towards heavy download traffic.

The video launched yesterday of the mag promises some super slick graphics, although the blog is a little less promising. To view the Project blog for a taster, head here.

Have you downloaded Project magazine issue one? Did you have any problems or is it running smoothly? Drop us a line in the comments and let us know!

Here’s yesterday’s video:

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http://twitter.com/ccoc Colin Crawford

Having video problems after downloading Project which is now impacting other video services

http://twitter.com/ccoc Colin Crawford

Solved – the screen lock / mute button was the issue

http://www.facebook.com/grotting John Grøtting

I have spent a little bit of time with the magazine. This is the first magazine that has really taken some time to add some interactive elements. Some elements are purely decorative (that's ok), but more importantly there is some interaction which is truly helpful to the content. They will certainly improve the usability from issue to issue, but this is a very good first step. It is definitely more engaging than Wired for iPad. The biggest criticism is about the intuitiveness of certain types of interaction. Swiping, for example, has come to mean navigation from page to page. If you use that for other purposes in the magazine, then you can confuse people. Similarly, a single tap anywhere (except a hotspot) should pull up the global navigation. Here you have to tap close to the lower edge.
Katie

Same in the States. Downloaded the app, got the same iTunes error message, connected to computer, had to update to the new OS, and now I can finally download issue 1. Or so I thought…I keep getting a message when I start download of the issue (which I've already paid for) that says “3G network description error.” Then it begins the very slow download process only to experience an error when it reaches 100%! Graphics do look really nice but I expected more from Branson/Virgin. Wouldn't want to be on the Virgin Galactic maiden voyage…
Chuck

Nope I doesn't work for me ! I have the latest OS.

It always ( eventually ) gets to 100% download, then error message. Hopeless!

BTW it is NOT A FREE APP ! The free bit is the ability to load a PAID for app.

Fatal error as the paid for bit does Not load.

Ipad lover

Do not pay for the initial flights on the Virgin Galactic. If it is free I would still not go.
http://twitter.com/marcbrown marc brown

Trying to download Project – the new Richard Branson iPad magazine… has been 12+ hours and i'm at 23% downloaded… What's up?
Walter Dithers

downloaded to 100% and then says 'Error' – restart iPad (never had to do that before!) and same problem.
Rushed to market to beat Murdoch, I suppose, and doesnt frickin work.

I can see a complete erase and restore coming as this 'App' has been rushed past the usual Apple curators….Dinner with Steve – maybe they forgot to TEST the frickin thing?
RobHWales

Downloaded it today – no problems – looks like they may have got over their launch glitches. Overall I'm impressed. It took a while to unpack and the first time I went into it I got stuck in an advert for a Ford Mondeo (aargh) while the rest of the magazine sorted itself out.

As another commentator said some of the UI is brilliant and some just for decoration – sometimes it's hard to tell which. Overall the navigation works well and the content scrubbing bar works well.

I'll be interested if they update it within the month – that'd be cool but overall it's not bad value although I'd like a bit more content for the money – Double the number of articles to make it on a par with a written magazine's content.
guest

downloaded and then crashed at 100% repeatedly, they don't respond to support queries and haven't posted anything about the problems on the website, pretty poor really.
Paul Lemon

It took 2 hours to download and what a waste of time it is. The triumph of style over substance. A waste of money, stick with Flipbook, it's cheaper and way way more cutting edge and exciting.

Paul Lemon

sorry Flipboard!

http://blog.dogma.co.uk Richard Kimber

It looks great, but is very difficult to navigate.

1. I managed to crash the app twice just trying to get beyond the Ford ad.
2. The right hand panel works inconsistently.
3. You have to sit through the same video over and over to get to content that follows it.

I think the main problem is that they are trying to use the same gestures in too many places. I f you want to have interactive ads and widgets, it might be an idea to take gestures out of the navigation. Or at least provide a visible alternative.
howling fantod

I paid for the issue, and twice got a “download error” as it was nearing 100%. I emailed customer service and told them the download was going far slower than I'd expect (unless the issue was multiple gigs in size), and that in light of the slow download, the ability to download in the background would be well appreciated. I received the following response:

We apologies for any difficulties you might be facing this is due to high demand and we're working as fast as we can to rectify any issues.

We are working on speeding up the download process by reducing the size of the file.

If a download/install fails please try again, but first delete the downloaded issue first. You do not have to pay again after deleting and download the issue again. ITunes will recognize that you have already purchased this issue.

You will need to connect to wifi to download the issue, the faster your broadband connection, the faster it will download. If your iPad goes to sleep or locks this may pause the download.

Try setting the iPad' auto lock to 'never'. Go to Settings, General Settings and from the menu choose Auto Lock, Never.

If your iPad is also plugged in to power source this should prevent the download being interrupted.

Project is designed to work on Apple's new operating system, iOS4.2. Connect your iPad to your Mac or PC, open iTunes and install iOS 4.2.

Please let me know if you are having any further problems or Visit our FAQ’s page which is constantly updated.

(I have not yet tried following their advice in terms of re-purchasing: after clearing the issue and clicking “purchase,” I was prompted as to whether I'd like to pay $2.99 for the issue, and declined–in spite of their assurances, I'm not in a hurry to pay twice for something i haven't had a chance to read once.)

howling fantod

And for the record, I am running 4.2, and I have a wifi-only iPad, so the speed isn't the problem–it's not exactly a T3, but it's never taken longer than 10-15 minutes to download even large games, and as others are reporting, it took me hours to get to my 99% download error messages with this.

I'm still looking forward to seeing what they've put together, and I'm sure they'll fix this soon enough, but all the same, it's disappointing.
Gearing_griff

Had the same problem! Tried purchasing the mag again and (thank god) iTunes did recognise that I’d already bought it. Press purchase-enter your password and the message should confirm it. Go for it!

Lh

Doesnt work.

Says 100% downloaded and then freezes!!!

Virgin Project iPad only magazine out now, but glitchy

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