Frustrations reading the Economist magazine on holiday...

I am on holiday this week (which is why you will get an automated email if you email me – I will be replying next week!). I am in the lovely Croatian town of Perec with my laptop (in case of emergencies), but being very good and concentrating on spending time with my family and catching up on my reading. Until now the laptop has been used just once – we all watched a film on it last night.

One drawback of being on holiday is that I am not at home to get my regular copy of the Economist magazine (which I have subscribed to since 2004) in the post. So I need to access it online….

On the IPhone I can download it online in Apple’s magazine store but I like the look and feel of the magazine layout – I want to be see it as it is in print, flick through the pages,skim some of the bits. It has a simple, clear feel and layout…

So I emailed the Economist customer services to ask them if they have an HTML5 version or a PDF – I can then choose to read the PDF on my laptop or ask one of my colleagues to convert it into HTML5 online and read it on my IPhone – given it is what I have spent the last three years developing, I know it is perfectly possible…

The answer I get from Customer services is that there is apparently a google HTML5 web application (which does not run on iOS) or a Windows 8 Table App (I’ve got an IPhone). But there is no generic HTML5 edition (like you can see at EnCountry) and no PDF version. So I will have to listen to the audio version, wait until I get home, or read the hacked about copy in the IPad App:-(

The ultimate irony of course is that any number of illegal sites on the Internet are advertising PDF versions of the Economist which anyone can access, but I cannot actually get hold of a legal copy as a legal subscriber….

If the Economist would like to use our converter to provide a proper HTML5 magazine, (which would of course allow them access to all the analytics data and boost their SEO), I would be more than happy to let them use of converter for free. I am more than happy to forego the 5 US dollars it would cost to convert it – just so I can read it properly on my browser….