I think it means once the NYT has synced the news files to the iPad. But regardless, each time I invoke the app, the screen shows the old front page and a little later the screen changes to the new news. There have been times that I was in the middle of an article when I shut it down and when I invoke it, the page still shows that article. So I think that NYT caches the downloaded articles so you can read them before it can download newer material.