Review Insights · App Store
FOOD & WINE
TI Media Solutions Inc. · 352 ratings · ★ 4.4
4.4
★★★★★
352 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 84 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"magazine"
29 negative reviews mention this · 35% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Should be a recipe box. This app should have a recipe book type feature where you can search the full catalogue of recipes. I don’t think as many people are interested in just reading old magazines on their phone as would be in having a way to easily search and ac…" - ale-x51
2
"access"
26 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Better app needed. Hard to search even when I know the exact name of that recipe I’m looking for. Which saved recipes could be organized in folders. App also logs out and doesn’t know I’m a subscriber and should have full access. Take a look at NYTs cooking a…" - Sfogirl
3
"issues"
26 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Not a fan of the app. I have been subscribing for over a decade but I trouble accessing issues of any date. While I understand that some older issues may not be available, I cannot even get the current or last issue. And The app is always asking me to “purchase…" - Long time subscriber1
4
"subscription"
25 negative reviews mention this · 30% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible app. Constantly locked out of my iTunes subscription. Restore function does not work." - RCnNYC
5
"update"
18 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Not as good as most other cooking apps. Terrible app. I subscribe to the magazine yet can not open the digital issues. Instead I am asked to subscribe and I already do. I’m signed in so should be no problem. Also if you search for a recipe from a recent edition it rarely is avai…" - anicknamexxxx
6
"recipes"
16 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Better app needed. Hard to search even when I know the exact name of that recipe I’m looking for. Which saved recipes could be organized in folders. App also logs out and doesn’t know I’m a subscriber and should have full access. Take a look at NYTs cooking a…" - Sfogirl
7
"digital"
16 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Does not work. iPad Pro 2024, and app immediately crashes. Love the magazine, hate the digital." - Foodwhiner
8
"issue"
15 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Dont trust. I cant download the last issue I have been contacting them for more than a month and dont answer. I am a suscriber since 2014, have try all inclusive reinstalling the app. They wont help you" - Amarilloisthecolor
9
"food"
13 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Noooo recipes!!. I just paid and downloaded the Food and Wine app. I searched for ‘chocolate cake’ and a few options came up. When I selected one it just shows me a picture of a cake with some text… no recipe, no way to access a recipe. What is this app for…" - Terrible Tech
10
"magazines"
12 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Should be a recipe box. This app should have a recipe book type feature where you can search the full catalogue of recipes. I don’t think as many people are interested in just reading old magazines on their phone as would be in having a way to easily search and ac…" - ale-x51
11
"other"
12 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Pure Garbage App. Please look at how other cooking magazines make content available digitally. Food and Wine app is simply a clunky and unfriendly way to view the magazine digitally. Worst app ever. Love the magazine but better options out there to subscr…" - Mike21045
12
"been"
11 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Dont trust. I cant download the last issue I have been contacting them for more than a month and dont answer. I am a suscriber since 2014, have try all inclusive reinstalling the app. They wont help you" - Amarilloisthecolor
📋 All 84 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Dont trust
I cant download the last issue I have been contacting them for more than a month and dont answer. I am a suscriber since 2014, have try all inclusive reinstalling the app. They wont help you
Not a fan of the app
I have been subscribing for over a decade but I trouble accessing issues of any date. While I understand that some older issues may not be available, I cannot even get the current or last issue. And The app is always asking me to “purchase” an issue.
Does not work
iPad Pro 2024, and app immediately crashes. Love the magazine, hate the digital.
Won’t open
Won’t open
Terrible app
Constantly locked out of my iTunes subscription. Restore function does not work.
Access not available
Not sure what I am doing incorrectly, but the app will not let me sign in nor will it allow me to read any magazines even after I subscribed. Seems like a waste of money to me.
App problems
Good publication, but terrible support for the app. Each year when you pay/ renew your subscription I unable to get the new magazines. Had the same problem last year.
Good luck with Support!!!!
If you like this publication, save yourself a lot of time and frustration and just get the printed version. F&W is no help, nor is Apple!
Good luck with Support!!!!
If you like this publication, save yourself a lot of time and frustration and just get the printed version. F&W is no help, nor is Apple!
Noooo recipes!!
I just paid and downloaded the Food and Wine app. I searched for ‘chocolate cake’ and a few options came up. When I selected one it just shows me a picture of a cake with some text… no recipe, no way to access a recipe. What is this app for again? Pictures? I would like my money back please!
PAID BUT NO ACCESS
I have no access to the magazines I paid for. No one has contacted me; I just receive notifications that a new issue is ready. I need to hear from somebody.
I have continued problems trying to access new magazine issues
Please help. I am billed every month but can’t accès the new issues. This has happened before and was resolved for a short time.
App subscription feature doesn’t work
App subscription feature doesn’t work
Access to digital magazines
Terrible app. I have both digital and delivery subscription and can not get digital magazines on my iPhone 13.
Pure Garbage App
Please look at how other cooking magazines make content available digitally. Food and Wine app is simply a clunky and unfriendly way to view the magazine digitally. Worst app ever. Love the magazine but better options out there to subscribe to.
Unable to access app
I have a subscription through Apple until June 2023. However, the app does not allow me to see issues and never moves beyond the restoring purchases message. Please let me know how to fix this. Thank you
Digital subscription
I pay for a digital subscription but when I open the app you offer me a free trial or a price to purchase an issue but no way to sign in .. I don’t want to purchase an issue or a free trial I want to be able to log in to my account and see the content I’ve purchased.
Love the content, not the app
I love Food and Wine. Subscribed to the print version for years and a couple years ago added the digital version. The app is unusable though.
It constantly logs me out, so I have to log back/restore purchases to access my magazines. It is also unbearably slow. Trying to read a new issue on the fly ends up with me waiting up to a minute for each page to load. I decided to just download each issue in advance. It’s taking over 2 hours to download a single magazine? How is that possible? I thought I would just queue a bunch of downloads and leave it plugged in over night, but queuing multiple just results in the app timing out and giving an error message for all the issues that queued. Figure this out and I’ll give you 5 stars because I LOVE the content.
It constantly logs me out, so I have to log back/restore purchases to access my magazines. It is also unbearably slow. Trying to read a new issue on the fly ends up with me waiting up to a minute for each page to load. I decided to just download each issue in advance. It’s taking over 2 hours to download a single magazine? How is that possible? I thought I would just queue a bunch of downloads and leave it plugged in over night, but queuing multiple just results in the app timing out and giving an error message for all the issues that queued. Figure this out and I’ll give you 5 stars because I LOVE the content.
Not as good as most other cooking apps
Terrible app. I subscribe to the magazine yet can not open the digital issues. Instead I am asked to subscribe and I already do. I’m signed in so should be no problem.
Also if you search for a recipe from a recent edition it rarely is available so I must resort to keeping hard copies. This app really needs an update and made more user friendly. Almost worthless although the magazine is enjoyable.
Also if you search for a recipe from a recent edition it rarely is available so I must resort to keeping hard copies. This app really needs an update and made more user friendly. Almost worthless although the magazine is enjoyable.
Impossible to search for saved items
Horrible search function
Crashes constantly
Latest version crashes constantly when flipping pages of the digital magazine.
Missing issues
I have an active subscription to F&W and the app has not given me access to any issues since August.
Food & Wine slow motion
The app takes to long to download, to many distractions, content pages pop ups, etc.
App User Interface Needs Improvement
Why is your i-pad app user interface so difficult to use? Needs simplification.
Useless
I cannot believe you switched formats. Annoy navigate like the actual magazine. Please restore the previous version of the App or cancel my subscription!
Not a fan
The new format is so cumbersome and difficult to navigate. Definitely not an upgrade and they need to change things back or do something better.
New app is horrendous
I had no trouble with the previous version but this app is horrible. I’ve literally never been able to use it because the sign in has NEVER WORKED despite the fact that I pay extra for an all-access subscription. Truly miserable.
Same problem as other users on iPad
After resetting my password and ensuring my login information was correct, all that I can view are old issues. The current March edition asks me to buy the magazine or subscribe. This is very annoying because I am a subscriber with issues populated through February. I'm quite disappointed, to say the least.
Don’t update if you value your existing library.
Like many other subscribers, I also have lost access to my entire library of F&W.
I also called customer service to be informed an email with reset instructions would be sent. That didn’t happen. I called again and I was informed it would be escalated for assistance and I would be receiving another email with escalation details and reset steps.
I called a third time to which I was informed the previous email with the rest/escalation steps were to use the reset password “ password”.
I attempted to access with the rep on the phone to no success which then caused them to say “Since the update, all users no longer have access to their libraries”.
So how about an update or option to roll app back to prior version.
All we would like is access to our previous libraries. I have another year left on my account. If it’s not corrected, there will be no reason for a renewal.
I also called customer service to be informed an email with reset instructions would be sent. That didn’t happen. I called again and I was informed it would be escalated for assistance and I would be receiving another email with escalation details and reset steps.
I called a third time to which I was informed the previous email with the rest/escalation steps were to use the reset password “ password”.
I attempted to access with the rep on the phone to no success which then caused them to say “Since the update, all users no longer have access to their libraries”.
So how about an update or option to roll app back to prior version.
All we would like is access to our previous libraries. I have another year left on my account. If it’s not corrected, there will be no reason for a renewal.
Terrible Update...Downdate!
Zero access to anything! Just revert back to the perviously version! 😡
Long time user, app now useless
I have been using this app for as long as it has existed, as I moved overseas 11years ago. Last year it renewed automatically and when I was forced to update app, it never worked again. Restored purchases, deleted and reloaded app, nothing. Contacted app developers and Apple, and they each blamed it on the other. It’s trying to renew itself again and I am most certainly not going to allow that to happen. Too bad because it’s a beautiful magazine.
Crap App
Don’t update!!!
I’ve lost all past issues in my library (YEARS worth!!!) and they are no restoring no matter how many times I’ve followed the “instructions “
And before you tell me to email you with my account number, I had years and YEARS worth under different subscription numbers than the one i have now! Why don’t you fix your system so it recognizes our user names?
This happened on ALL of my magazines that you took over!!
My Real Simple, my Health, my Travel & Leisure & my Shape. This is ridiculous
I’ve lost all past issues in my library (YEARS worth!!!) and they are no restoring no matter how many times I’ve followed the “instructions “
And before you tell me to email you with my account number, I had years and YEARS worth under different subscription numbers than the one i have now! Why don’t you fix your system so it recognizes our user names?
This happened on ALL of my magazines that you took over!!
My Real Simple, my Health, my Travel & Leisure & my Shape. This is ridiculous
The new app could not be worse!
The old app worked perfectly and no problem, the new app that was updated the week of January 10th could not be worse and doesn’t work at all. Customer Service told me uninstall and reinstall and still doesn’t work! Now waiting for a new brilliant idea to see if we can get it to work.
I still can’t see my magazines, I have done EVERYTHING customer service has told me to do and no luck! I pay for a subscription to read the magazine on time, not back issues! The new app is a TOTAL DISASTER!
I have problems with People, Food and Wine & EatingWell and all three magazines committed the exact same error to hire Meredith Corporation for their new app. They should have stayed with the old app which worked perfectly!
I still can’t see my magazines, I have done EVERYTHING customer service has told me to do and no luck! I pay for a subscription to read the magazine on time, not back issues! The new app is a TOTAL DISASTER!
I have problems with People, Food and Wine & EatingWell and all three magazines committed the exact same error to hire Meredith Corporation for their new app. They should have stayed with the old app which worked perfectly!
Awful Update
This new app is awful. It is soo much trouble trying to login with my account. It seems to have disappeared after the update. This update stinks!
F&W UPDATE FLAWED
The new app has to be flawed. Honestly, this has happened to me EVERY time I either get a new device, or F&W updates their app, - FOR YEARS!! I am a digital & print subscriber. Don’t tell me to contact you with my account information, etc, etc JUST FIX YOUR APP!!!!!!
After update account lost.
Garbage app. Recent update caused all issues downloaded to vanish. No longer recognizes my login and password. Appears to have been bought out by zinio and while the publisher sees my login and password. Zinio and The app does not.
I am no longer renewing because of lousy customer service!
I am no longer renewing because of lousy customer service!
lost access to previously purchased issues
After the app update, I no longer have access to my previously purchased issues. Additionally now I have to pay for an issues previously downloaded
Impossible to restore purchases in new version
Impossible to restore purchases in new version
Terrible
They need to take a lesson from Bon Appétit/Epicurious and allow one to save recipes. This app is so hard to manage with no recipe downloads.
Frustrating!
Great app, once you’re actually able to download with your digital account info. Only let me download one month and rest I would have to purchase. Still waiting to hear back from app customer service.Frustrating!
Disappointing
I’m just adding my voice to the chorus of disappointed food and wine app users. The app does not allow you to search - it only had duplicated copies of the magazine I already have a hardcopy of. Also, and this part is important, you cannot see reviews. Part of the reason why I bought the app is to read and share feedback. I can’t read the feedback when I go in through the browser and now I can’t see the feedback through the app. It seems pointless to have it at all.
A seriously crippled app
Of all of the apps I use, this one has to be the most limiting. Compared to the actual website, this app restricts you to just the magazine with limited functionality. Frankly you are better off going to the website unless you want an app that just takes up space.
Update. This app will not restore purchases and locks you out of sections. It’s a nightmare. Use the regular website as this app is useless.
Update. This app will not restore purchases and locks you out of sections. It’s a nightmare. Use the regular website as this app is useless.
Why do developers change apps that are working fine?
F&W updated their app, although I don’t see any difference. However, several of my older issues have disappeared and at least one newer issue is locked even though I paid for it. Tried to contact them through the help section of the app but they never replied.
Drops earlier issues
If you have had an extended subscription to F&W, DO NOT UPDATE! The new app dropped my access to about half my library. They say they’ll work on it, but it would be better to wait. Issues now do not seem to be truly downloaded, but exist only as links to their server. (What happens to the issues you already paid for if you stop your subscription?) This is second update I’ve been through with them where they’ve had this kind of screw-up. Makes you wonder why they pay so little attention to whether a new app really works before releasing it.
Concentrate on food and wine
I just downloaded this app so I could look for recipes, since you DO NOT ALLOW ME TO SEE ANYTHING AT THE WEBSITE IF I GO IN FROM MY BROWSER. The app doesn’t even offer me a search option, just a list of recent issues I can view. I have the print issues. I’ve been your customer for years. I have 2 suggestions, 1. Spend more money on a reliable firm to manage your website, website access, membership. 2. Concentrate on food and wine and less on swanning around the globe showing us how cool you are. Keep in mind, face the fact...you are unable to provide a working website or an acceptable app
New app is abysmal
Love the magazine and recipes, but the new app is abysmal. 1) They've removed the favorites/bookmark feature and now not only can I not mark recipes I want to make, but I've lost all my previously saved favorite recipes. 2) The app doesn’t remember where you left off reading the magazine and you have to hunt for it. 3) The app hangs on startup if there’s no internet connection or a weak one since it wants to load articles from the internet, even if you just want to read the magazine you’ve already downloaded. Very frustrating. I paid extra for the digital subscription, but this latest update makes me not want to do that again.
Do not update!
Horrible app support. I have a current digital subscription but I can not access any editions of the magazine after the update. I have contacted both Apple and Food and Wine but they just told me to contact the other.
New app does not work
Hard to navigate and does not allow access to downloaded issues when offline - not not worth cost
Not Like Most, and That’s Not Good
I just downloaded several magazine apps, and most view like regular books/magazines. Apparently, this one just had an update that made changes, changes that were not improvements. This one looks like the pages were just scanned in. There is an option to bring up a reading view, but it is annoying. Perhaps the negative feedback will encourage developers to design an actual reading app for this magazine.
Total bummer!
Before this recent update to “improve” this app, it worked just fine. I could download my latest issue every month. I could easily read my new issue or any of my (many) previously downloaded issues. It worked. Now, after spending 10 minutes with that little wheely thingy going round & round, I can’t get this app to open at all! TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY!!!
Dammit! New Update is Awful!
I wanted to keep my old issues of F&W, back to the initial launch of the app in 2010, many of which I refer to often. Thanks to this miserable new update, they are gone forever. When I clicked to restore purchases, it only went back to 2014. Please restore ALL of my purchases! Bring them back, or you will go the way of Gourmet!
New update very disappointing
This new update is the worst. Even though I restored my purchases, I can’t access any of them without having to pay again. I’ll be canceling my subscription if the bugs aren’t corrected!!
+ 34 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
85%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
13%
Negative (1-2★)