When moving from the military to the corporate sector, it’s a good idea to make yourself situationally aware of what’s going on in the business world. Oftentimes we find interesting articles online to provide to our candidates, only to realize those articles are locked behind a paywall. Frustrating yet understandable since journalists have to make money somehow. Unfortunately, subscribing to multiple sites can be pretty cost-prohibitive. Plus, will it really be worth your money to pay a subscription for a periodical that you may only visit occasionally? I used to subscribe to several different print magazines (Fortune, Businessweek, Sports Illustrated, to name a few) only to realize I only read a small portion of content yet was paying over $200 annually for the subscriptions.
Then I started to realize that I was also seeing many articles from those magazines on my free Apple News app on my iPad. Plus I would see other interesting articles. Yet the same problem – I found that many were locked behind paywalls. Then I decided to try out Apple News+ which is the paid version of the news app. This decision was a game-changer. Now I pay $12.99 a month (roughly $156/year) for all of the same magazines plus a ton more. I found this resource to be the ideal option for me for several reasons
- Price: I am saving about 40% per year just on the magazines that I had subscriptions to plus access to many many, more.
- Variety: Apple News + offers hundreds of different periodicals. You can also add local news for many major metro areas.
- Sharing: The subscription can be shared with up to 6 people
- Less Guilt: Let’s face it, very few people read every magazine from cover to cover. I know I didn’t. Now I don’t feel guilty about paying for something and not reading it. Never mind the thought of all of those trees that were cut down to print unread material.
- Personalization: The app learns about your interests and can make suggestions based on your reading habits.
The biggest drawback is that Apple News+ is only available on iOS platforms. If you do not have any Apple products, an alternative magazine app is Zinio, which costs $8.99 per month, cancel at any time. After a quick scan of Zinio Unlimited, it seems to have a similar portfolio of magazines, but it does not have newspapers such as Wall Street Journal.
Lastly, if you are looking for some periodicals that might be worth checking out, I suggest the following (all available on Apple News+)
- Bloomberg Businessweek
- Fortune
- Wall Street Journal
- Forbes
- The Economist
- Fast Company
- Inc.
- Business Insider
Lastly, please know that neither I nor Alliance are receiving kickbacks from Apple for this recommendation. We think they are doing quite all right by themselves.
John Zornick