Lekiosk app review

Lekiosk
iOS and Android
Free (requires subscription or pay-per-issue for magazines)

The best way to descibe lekiosk is that it's 'Spotify for magazines'. The service, which has been successful in France for a few years now, provides a digital newsstand where £9.99 a month gets you 10 magazines. You don't have to read the same titles every month though it's worth noting that not every magazine is part of the bundle deal. If you want music magazines NME and Uncut, for example, you'll have to pay per issue.

It really is a virtual newsstand that displays the magazines, by the way. Showing lekiosk's French roots, the app displays a 3D version of one of those news and magazine kiosks that you find throughout French city centres. The British version is red with what appears to be the top of a telephone box in its centre. There's even a postbox in there if you look carefully.

It's a cute interface, perhaps too cute. After a moment you'll notice that certain titles appear on the rack several times, giving the impression that there are more titles than there really are. Since these are different issues, you might not be getting the latest so it's worth checking the date before you download.

Once you've chosen a magazine it downloads to your library. From there you can flick through digital pages, complete with fake page turns and even a shadow meant to suggest the centre of the magazine. This faithful recreation of a magazine is a little too much for my taste - I'd rather have something designed specifically for a tablet - but plenty of people like it.

If you read a lot of magazines and there are enough titles here that interest you then lekiosk is well worth investigating.