Tapeop online is really broken?

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stk
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Tapeop online is really broken?

Post by stk » Sat Jul 05, 2014 5:33 am

Hey guys, love the mag, but..
Have you tried browsing and reading issues on an ipad? I appreciate my complimentary subscription from the ipad app debacle, but the website is just as bad as the app. Slow, buggy and crashy. On a 2 yr old ipad here, latest ios, tried safari, chrome and dolphin.

just thought I'd let you know that all is not well (actually, pretty bad) in tablet land. Looks like your web dev has done almost as bad a job as your previous app dev :shock:

Still love the read, but would love to see the online issues working properly. Cheers.

jhharvest
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Post by jhharvest » Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:11 am

Have you tried the PDF version?

stk
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Post by stk » Sat Jul 05, 2014 5:28 pm

jhharvest wrote:Have you tried the PDF version?
I'm talking about the back issues, which are unavailable as pdf without purchasing them.

stk
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Post by stk » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:46 am

Particularly disappointing because i recently grabbed the Audiotechnology app (free, and other mag worth reading imo) and it works great, smooth and glitchless :?:

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Post by TapeOpLarry » Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:41 am

We just upgraded our servers. I'll ask Dave to chime in.
Larry Crane, Editor/Founder Tape Op Magazine
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(do not send private messages via this board!)
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Post by TapeOpDave » Wed Jul 23, 2014 11:33 am

Hi guys,

This is an important topic so forgive me for being a little verbose in addressing it.

Implementing the online PDF reader is tricky in that it leverages new and intensive web technology to make it work. Reading PDFs natively within a webpage is something that wasn't possible at all until recently, and as such there is a clear risk on "older" devices (I put that in quotes because we all know how fast technology moves these days) -- the older the device is, the more likely the user will have a bad experience.

Unfortunately, there are very few immediate ways around this. It's worth mentioning that the core code "engine" that we use for the online reader is highly standardized -- developed by Mozilla engineers, and included as plugins for the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome browsers. It is about as optimized as it can get right now. On mobile devices, I made sure there is very little other code running when viewing an online issue, so if crashes happen, they happen because of that core code itself. It is simply the nature of the beast that complex, dense, image-laden PDFs (like Tape Op) take a lot of processing power to render on the web.

The slowness/non-smoothness you speak of is also a part of this. For example, right now the PDFs in our reader won't continue to "scroll with inertia" as we expect them to when reading on a tablet. It feels kludgy to me and it really bugs me. The thing is, it is totally an option to have the inertial scrolling thing work, but when i do so, it makes all but the absolute latest mobile devices crash immediately. So, there is a choice between an optimal experience for smaller number of users, or a sub-optimal experience for a larger number.

So with all these limitations, why go this direction at all? There are many reasons I could give, but these are the two biggest:

1) We no longer alienate the 70%+ of our readership who don't have iPads.

Even if we had the time, budget, and logistical resources to implement an Android app AND iPad app (which we don't), we would still be denying all desktop/laptop users, smartphone users, Windows phone users, and whatever else becomes to the New Hot Tech Thing in the next few years. The bottom line is that anything done on the web is immune to the constantly shifting landscape of device hardware.

2) Time is on our side.

Given the volatility of the digital world, it is a priority for us to find digital products that won't become quickly obsolete, and to us, the web feels significantly more permanent than the app trend does. The web will only get faster, and web browsers will only get more powerful. The online reader issues will resolve themselves with this. PDFs have been around for a long time, and we expect them to be around for quite a while longer. If you buy one of our digital issues, you can do anything you want with it, share it with anyone, and keep it forever. It is our hope that all this -- plus a little time -- adds up to a stable system that gives readers full control, and is impervious to the trends around it.

In summary, we are choosing a more future-looking delivery paradigm and taking a performance/usability hit up front, with the intent that it will pay off by being a much more stable and permanent solution given a year or two. We hope you stick with us as we move towards this goal!

Stk - that said, since you are a previous iPad subscriber, please email me (dave@tapeop.com) so I can look up your subscription, and we can at least get you offline access to the issues you would've had as an iPad subscriber.

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Post by digitaldrummer » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:44 pm

I just downloaded #102 and read the whole thing on a first run Kindle Fire. it worked great for me because I got it a couple days before the print version so I was able to take it on a plane (for an unplanned trip where I had a combined flying time of ~ 5 hours each way...).

so yeah, I was thrilled to be able to take it with me. when I got home the print version had arrived too. I still really like the print version and I'll be reading it again (at least once).

thanks TapeOp. For both versions!
Mike
www.studiodrumtracks.com -- Drum tracks starting at $50!
www.doubledogrecording.com

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