I subscribed to the redesigned New Republic website, but I can't get it to work... [UPDATED].

... on my digital devices and I can't find subscriber help on the website.

When I go to the website in my browser from my desktop computer, I can see that I'm signed in. I am certain I know my sign-in information and my password. I've downloaded the iPad app, but when it asks me to sign-in, it doesn't recognize my information. When I go back to my desktop computer and search the website through my browser, I can't find any relevant place to go for help with my subscription.

I subscribed because I wanted to have the app experience on iPad. I thought Chris Hughes, having succeeded in co-founding Facebook, would have the functionality worked out in a lovely way. The display of articles actually is pretty nice, and the free app works without a subscription.

I know they want to make money, and I was willing to credit Hughes — if he pulled it off — with finally figuring out how to make traditional print media into a digital experience worth paying for. I would have given this project good press if I could, but I'm getting nowhere.

Another thing. When I filled out the form to subscribe, I filled in many blocks of the form — name, address, credit card number — before clicking to continue. The page refreshed with a completely empty form and the information that I'd done my credit card number wrong. I can't believe I bothered to do the whole form a second time.

It's incredible, after all the Hughes hoopla, that they didn't test out the site in advance to see how it worked with ordinary people attempting to use it intuitively.

UPDATE: I sent an email to the address that thanked me for subscribing. I explained the problem, and I got a response saying that "the current issue on the iPad is free and therefore requires no login. So we've disable [sic] this for the short-term in order to give everyone a chance to read our relaunch issue. You'll be able to log in as normal when we release our next issue in two weeks."

So the message I was getting saying they didn't recognize my login information was misleading. They really would, presumably, recognize it, if it were needed, but it's not needed yet. This was incredibly annoying!

This also means that my statement "the free app works without a subscription" is wrong.