How do you read the Washington Post?

August 10, 2017 7:09 AM

I have a digital national subscription to the Washington Post. It seems useless because it won't keep me logged in on my phone, but the app is very hard to navigate for what I want (mostly Hax and Petri.) Am I doing something wrong?

Any time I go to washingtonpost.com on my iphone (e.g. a link from soc media or from MF), I am told about the different subscriptions I could buy. But I already have a subscription, and every damn time I figure out where the login is, and log in again, but it's painful as hell considering I spend $100/yr on the thing. Meanwhile I think I can only use their Digital Edition app? It's bad, but maybe it doesn't have to be this bad and I'm missing something obvious? Help me read the Washington Post with my eyes!

posted by chesty_a_arthur to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

It won't help with links but your digital sub probably come with access to the replica edition via the PressReader app.
posted by nicwolff at 7:27 AM on August 10, 2017

Response by poster: Thanks, MissMerryMack - I should have clarified that I've had the login problem in Safari, in the Facebook browser AND in whatever Twitter opens, and the cookie doesn't persist in any of them. I'll check out the Classic app.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:51 AM on August 10, 2017

I read a handful of Post articles every day on my phone via the Flipboard app. I'm not a subscriber and have never been asked to log in or been prevented from reading an article.
posted by plastic_animals at 8:44 AM on August 10, 2017

Let me know if you figure out the thing with the app. You put "Hax" in the search and it comes up with nothing! And none of the live discussions are there, either. To be fair, their digital content in general seems to be held together with spit and bailing wire. The hosts of the the chats flat-out admit your best chance for finding stuff is to use Google, because their internal search engine has a very limited index.

I assume you don't have cookies turned off in general, right? Settings -> Safari -> Privacy and Security -> Block Cookies should say "Allow from Websites I Visit". If it says "Always block" you definitely won't stay logged in, and some sites won't work with "Allow from Current Website Only."
posted by wnissen at 9:35 AM on August 10, 2017

Does it log you out each and every time? Or does it log you out from the browser site if you then use the app after that? That is to say, if you logged-in to WaPo today using just the browser and then, if your very next visit to WaPo was also in the same browser, would you need to log-in again?

Could it be that WaPo does not allow you to be logged-in on two platforms (browser and app) concurrently?
posted by Thorzdad at 12:30 PM on August 10, 2017

Seems like an issue with the way your iPhone is handling cookies. On my phone (Android / Chrome browser) I stay logged in forever on both web and app (I agree the web is often easier to use). So in general it should work, but if your browser is clearing cookies when it closes or something that would explain the problem you're seeing.
posted by thefoxgod at 7:37 PM on August 10, 2017

They have three damn apps. You probably want The Washington Post Classic, as noted above. They seem to want you to use both the Classic and the Print Edition apps, but the Print Edition was a resource hog on my iPad and I haven't missed it since I deleted it.

I hope their RSS feeds have gotten better than they were mumblety years ago when I last used an RSS reader. They used to resend the same content a lot and occasionally pop up a whole feed as new again.

Also, you're not just using private browsing all the time are you? Is your Safari address bar black or silver? That would wipe out your cookies every time you closed a tab.
posted by fedward at 8:03 PM on August 10, 2017

Are you using Safari or Chrome in incognito mode by chance? I access WaPo from my browser all the time and it keeps me logged in.
posted by haykinson at 11:21 PM on August 10, 2017