In less than ten years, physical music stores were almost completely replaced by online music sharing services and download stores like iTunes and AmazonMP3. With the advent of e-ink and e-book readers such as the Kindle, the same transition to the online realm has started to take place for books. And today we’re at the brink of the next transition of content to move into the digital realm; yes, we’re talking about print magazines.
Condé Nast, publisher of magazines including Vogue, Wired and Glamour has announced it will begin making some of its magazines available for the Apple iPad, beginning this April. The first titles to be published will be the April edition of GQ followed by Vanity Fair for June and The New Yorker and Glamour following soon after. GQ has been already available on the iPhone as an app previously. WIRED will be hitting the iPad in June.
WIRED leading the way
Condé Nast is one of the first to adopt the iPad as a magazine publishing platform. Its technology imprint WIRED has been leading the way with an enthusiastic reception of the iPad in its editorials and a very refreshing opinion in how it can change the way magazines are published. Its editor-in-chief Chris Anderson called it a ‘game changer’ in magazine publishing. A few weeks ago, WIRED already presented a demonstration version of its magazine, made in Adobe Flash, and shown on a supersized screen symbolizing the iPad. This demonstration showed the digital magazines can include special dynamic content previously deemed impossible in print. Video advertisements and moving pictures were some of the dynamic features.
The iPad runs are part of a test which will run until October of this year at least, according to an internal memo. However, if they deem successful they will most certainly continue.
Laggards and pioneers
Like with all transitions, there are pioneers and laggards. Condé Nast is very smart in embracing this technology instead of fighting it; with this stand, it can most certainly become a pioneer in digital publishing. It can lay the groundwork for how future publishers will make their magazine content available on devices like the iPad. Most other publishers are laggards and are not nearly as far as Condé Nast in how it prioritizes its tablet strategy and already experiments with it. I mean, it is only about a month after we were actually confirmed an iPad was coming and they are already jumping on it like this. Their pioneering strategy demands respect. Publishers of the world: keep a close eye on what is happening here.
How do you see the landscape of print magazines change by the introduction of the iPad? Will print magazines die out completely and be replaced by digital more dynamic versions? Or will things not take off as much as we think and will the magazine fail on a digital device? I’d like to know what you think. Tell me in the comments!
The moment the tech world has been waiting on for possibly decades, maybe years and definitely months has finally culminated into today…
The official launch of Apple’s highly anticipated tablet device: the iPad. Tablet computers have had a rowdy history. Developed as pen computers in the early nineties to Tablet PC is the naughties and culminating into the iPad.
Tablet computers’ rowdy history
Tablets have been announced and denounced as the future of personal computing for decades. In 1991, they were dubbed pen computers. Focussing on handwriting recognition and interaction by a pen instead of fingers, software developers like Microsoft started including Pen Extensions into Windows 3.1 making it compatible with these pen computers.
Microsoft predicted these computers would take over the consumer market in a matter of years, and hardware developers such as IBM, Samsung, Fujitsu and Toshiba quickly followed up to support the new technology with their new touchscreen devices.
Tech press was positive but consumers were not ready for it yet. The devices simply did not sell. Millions of dollars in investment were not recouped and instead lost forever.
Pulling the tablet out of the niche
In 2000, Bill Gates tried again. He was still a firm believer that this technology could succeed. Re-dubbing the pen computer into the Tablet PC, Microsoft had relative success at stirring up the industry again. Touchscreen technology had developed rapidly since the 1990s fiasco and it was clear that the keyboard would at least for now not be replaced with handwriting technology. These developments made it possible for new devices to enter the market.
However, it still was not really taking off. Even in 2007, offered by majors like Dell and HP, the tablet devices were simply too expensive with prices ranging from $1,500 up to $5,000 and staying in the premium and business niche. One of the first actually cheap devices entering the market and still including a keyboard (being covered by our sister blog) were the Taiwanese ASUS Tablets with models like the ASUS Eee PC T91 and T101 selling unexpectedly well in the consumer market. ASUS’s inferior specifications however resulted in relatively slow devices.
And then Apple stepped in…
Rumors about a tablet device by Apple have been circulating the web for years now and we took part in covering on what was simply wrong, might be true and what was definitely truth. In the last year, the rumors even started seaping into the mainstream (including paper) press coverage, showing the impact of Apple possibly launching a new device on the consumer tech world.
The stories spoke about if an Apple tablet was coming up, what it would look like (with artists all over the web rendering their own 3d interpretations), which specifications it would have and which chips the tablet would run on.
And in the last few months, rumors focused on the tablet possibly offering e-book functionality, making it a serious contender against Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. With The New York Times, Vogue, GQ, Wired and Harper-Collins already rumoring to have signed up to Apple’s content program, this made things all the more interesting.
“Come see our latest creation” says Apple
Today, the moment has arrived to see what is fact and what is fiction and how this device will supposedly change the world. In a packed and excited conference hall Apple invited worldwide press and technology pundits to “Come see our latest creation“, as the invitation read.
Steve Jobs presented us with the tablet device by Apple called the iPad. Video below.
The Apple iPad’s insides
First of all, the iPad comes in two flavours: the standard WiFi-enabled edition and the premium 3G-enabled edition with makes it possible to transfer data over AT&T’s data network. No contract with AT&T is required, however it is obvious that it will cost you to use their network.
Notable specs we really did not expect: the by Apple in-house produced A4 1 GHz processor – we were honestly thinking more of an Intel Duo Core 2 GHz as found in the Apple MacBook range. Earlier we reported the nVidia GeForce 9400M to be in the Apple Tablet. However, this one is missing; the Apple A4 chip seems to be responsible for all video processing in the iPad. Our designs of the Apple Tablet (see the background of this website or previous posts) was pretty close but did not include such a big border as the iPad. Apple has not chosen for this kind of screen for aesthetic reasons but simply to keep costs down. Cheaper screens need more technology on the sides of the displays and therefore the border is so large. We expected a USB port, to enable you to use USB data sticks and external third-party devices on your iPad but for unknown reasons Apple has made the mistake to not include this. Finally, we were wrong by 0.1″ in the size of the display; we expected 9.6″ and the iPad has a 9.7″ display.
No voice calling is available as the iPad is a data-only device. However, we have enough voice-over-ip (VOIP) options like Skype and Fring to choose from to make this possible any way; just after the iPad launch Apple has unlocked VOIP calling on the iPhone.
Focus on content and e-reading
The rumors were correct and Apple has made many deals with book, magazine and news publishers to make their content available on the iPad. Which publishers these are is until now unannounced. If we look at how the iTunes store quickly filled up with music as the major labels signed up, then this should not be such a great obstacle for Apple.
Yes, there were MP3 music stores before iTunes arrived, but Apple stirred up the music industry world due to it being such a major player in the personal computer industry, both in hardware and software. Yes, there are now e-book stores such as Amazon.com, but again Apple is bigger than those and can forge deals with major publishers more easy. In addition to facing Amazon as a competitor in e-books selling and the hardware for it (Amazon offers the Kindle e-reader), Apple will also soon face Google’s Books program which is creating deals with content publishers rapidly and currently offers the most book content out of anyone. Google plans to start selling books soon in PDF and other formats.
What you might miss on the iPad
Yes, there are some notable features missing on the iPad that are to be found on either the iPhone or a standard MacBook; the iPad does not carry a camera. It will not run Adobe Flash, making it disabled as the majority of the web uses Flash to present its content in some way including YouTube for its video streaming. Like the iPhone, the iPad also does not support multi-tasking. This is a disadvantage as much as its an advantage, it increases stability but decreases functionality. There are mixed reports about the WiFi model having a GPS chip or not; the keynote stated it would not, but Apple’s website states it will. This might have been a last-minute choice by Apple after seeing the negative press reactions on this.
Apple iPad specifications
Finally, let’s look at the numbers and data. Here’s the Apple iPad specs.
The Apple Tablet has supposedly received future content backing from the New York Times, Wired Magazine, Vogue and GQ (being not just these publications, but these companies as publishers of many more publications), Apple clearly sees the market opportunity here. Users do not like a stand-alone device with one function, such as an e-reader or a PMP. Giving them the ability to work with a device as comprehensive as the potential Apple Tablet on which they can browse the web, write notes, work on spreadsheets and for leisure listen to music, watch movies and read books is a much better solution for mainstream multimedia users.
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Books & Magazines, Editorial, iPad News | Heather Richardson | Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
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