Free digital issues of several popular magazines are available via www.zinio.com/iphone for free to iPhone users and those using Safari who change the user agent in their browser to “Mobile Safari 1.1.3-iPhone.” It’s also available to Firefox users who change their user agent accordingly. They’re not no-name brands of magazines either. Here’s a quick run-through of the full magazines that they offer as listed on the Zinio site:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Playboy
- Saveur
- Popular Photography
- Men’s Health
- Kiplinger’s
- Popular Mechanics
- Penthouse
- Viv
- Car and Driver
- PC Magazine
- Elle
- Technology Review
- Outside
- Macworld UK
- Esquire UK
- NME
- Macworld
- Lonely Planet
- Reader’s Digest
The only thing you have to do is enter in an email address which then subscribes you to their mailing list, and you’ll be able to view the full digital issues of the above listed magazines. When you choose a magazine, you’ll be able to scroll through the pages (they recommend landscape mode) and then tap on a page you want to view in a larger version.
To take advantage of this, on your iPhone just navigate to www.zinio.com/iphone. In case you don’t have an iPhone but you’re using Safari and want to take advantage of this, here’s how you change the User Agent:
- Open Safari and go to preferences
- Click the Advanced tab and check the box that says “show develop menu in menu bar”
- Go up to the Develop Menu > User Agent > Mobile Safari 1.1.3 – iPhone
- Navigate to www.zinio.com/iphone and start enjoying the magazines!
We knew about this for a couple of weeks now but decided not to write about it right away just in case it was something that was done by mistake. It’s still around though, so it may be here to stay…
Source: Gizmodo
Playboy for free? I’ve been so missing those articles…
Wow, this is amazing. Works well and.. free?! Must be a mistake or a promotional month or something.. but if I’d have an iPhone and they would ask a reasonable price for this, I’d find it a really interesting service (especially if you don’t have to subscribe to one magazine but can choose to read whatever you feel like at that moment).
Agreed Change. Especially if they added a larger selection of magazines. I think they’d get lots of people interested in paying a reasonable price for access to multiple magazines.