Adding Texture to Your Reading Pleasure

Influence Central received a six-month trial of Texture to facilitate writing this review. All opinions are our own.

So many magazines, so little time. Or perhaps we could say so many magazines, so little space to store them? If you love magazines, but hate the guilt you feel when they end up in your recycling bin at the end of the month, check out the Texture app. With Texture, relieve your mobile devices, your shelf space, and your guilt all at once, while easily taking your fave magazines along with you anywhere.

Similar to the feeling of standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling rack at a major bookstore, Texture offers more magazines than you could possibly read. Choose by category, title, read highlights from magazines selected by the Texture team, or explore a new title with an eye-catching cover. A once-a-month subscription provides readers unlimited access to all magazines starts at $9.99/month and can be used across five devices. Even if you only currently subscribe to two magazines a month, this app could pay for itself.

Previously called Next Issue, the name Texture more accurately describes the way magazines come to life on your devices. With Texture, animations, scrolling features, layers of images and text, and points of interest interact with you with just the tap of a finger. Even though your magazine gets read on the flat screen of a device, the experience of reading seems dimensional in ways a paper magazine could never achieve.

Instead of relying on the pediatrician’s office to keep the latest edition of Bon Appetit on hand for your pleasure, you can download this magazine or any of the other titles available on Texture. When a magazine gets downloaded to your device, you can access it anywhere, even on an airplane. You don’t need a wifi connection after that. And with your prized magazines at your disposal, you might not be too upset if your doctor makes you wait an extra fifteen minutes!

Your favorites can get designated in the app so the newest issue of the magazine downloads automatically to your device. Similar to how magazines used to arrive in your mailbox, now they arrive in your app, ready to read at any time. One thing to remember: downloads happen for the particular device you use to favorite it. Your career or gardening magazines will only show up on your iPad, not your husband’s. Great news! Your storage space won’t get taken up with the latest issue of Men’s Health.

If you ever have those “Now where did I put that recipe?” moments when you don’t have a second to spare, now you can create an entire collection of recipes you want to try in the “My Collections” area of the app. All the recipes (or any other category you want to create) from all the magazines get stored together. What a timesaver and space-saver! Even if your recipe box looks like a professional organizer’s dream, you still keep everything right where you know you can find it: in the recipe collection on your device.

A few situations presented challenges for us as we explored the Texture app. To get the most from this product, all devices must have the most current version of software update. Also, because the magazines require a bit of storage, if you download a lot, your space on your devices could get gobbled up quickly. The good news about these circumstances: you should update your devices anyway. Getting your latest issue of The New Yorker downloaded before you board a plane could be the motivation you need to make it to happen. Also, phones need to get cleaned out like our closets. Once you read a magazine, delete it from your downloads. Situation solved! Lastly, using the app drained our batteries on our devices pretty quickly compared to other apps. Keep an eye on how much battery life remains on your device so you can make that important phone call or text if you need to before you can recharge again.

We know at the end of our trial period we’ll feel sad to see this app go away. Reading magazines with the Texture app gives us more selection, more interface, more diversity, more organization, and more love of content than just reading a regular magazine. For the low monthly fee, we will probably just keep the magazines rolling into our downloads long into the future.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, Influence Central received a sample of the Texture app in exchange for writing this post –and you can get a free sample too! Just go to https://www.nextissue.com/pricing-buttons/ to get information on how to receive a month of Texture free of charge. If you want to learn more about the app, please go to https://www.nextissue.com/home-button/ to learn more about getting unlimited access to magazines.

Eileen Calandro