I stumbled across Texas Monthly because of Steve Earle. He did that cover of Dublin Blues, where it mentions Mad Dog Margaritas at the Chile Parlor Bar. When I googled that, I got the Texanist’s column about Mad Dog Margaritas, and I was hooked. But then I read some stories, very well written , and I was subscribed. I highly recommend it.

This is the worst iPad app of any of the many other daily and monthly periodicals that I subscribe to and read on my iPad. (My comments here are limited to the TM app, which is horrible, and not TM magazine itself, which is phenomenal.) TM's iPad app requires me to login constantly -- including during the same reading of an article -- in a way that no other app requires me to login. It's not possible to download and read offline. I’m often required to "press and hold" a button to revalidate who I am, just after re-logging in for the umpteenth time. It has no memory -- so every time I pick up the magazine, I have to remember and then find where I left off in an article via a page-by-page turn of the magazine. There's no product feature that allows me jump into the middle of the magazine to the start of a new article -- which means I must turn every page to get to the start of a new article in the middle of the magazine. TM's iPad app is a mindboggling step backward from what its iPad app used to be and massive step away from what other high-end periodicals provide. (Again, we love TM magazine; it's just that we hate TM's iPad edition.)

I purchased both the digital and actual paper subscription to Texas Monthly. As so many before me have reviewed, the app is horrible and I can’t believe Texas Monthly hasn’t figured out they need to find a different developer for their digital magazine subscriptions or do away with it in its entirety. Due to the number of reviews regarding the App I decided it was best to purchase the paper magazine as well. I have had other digital magazine subscriptions from completely different magazines without any issues at all. If you’re reading these reviews Texas Monthly, please consider getting this resolved so we can have the best of both digital and paper Texas Monthly!

The app is well designed and has a pleasant layout for reading on the phone. The one thing that is frustrating is that the Log In button in the top right corner always disappears before I can use it, so I am not able to access my account from the app.