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First Impressions of Wired’s iPad App

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010  |  Tom Carmony

Wired’s new iPad version (iTunes Link) of the magazine has finally hit the iTunes Store, beginning with the current June issue. Macworld has a good rundown of the basics here. As a subscriber to the print edition, I was particularly curious to see how the content was translated to the new tablet medium.

To date, most magazine-to-iPad transitions have been pretty underwhelming. Popular Science made a splash at launch with their highly interactive edition, and Time magazine’s effort has been generally well received (save for the annoyance of each issue being packaged as an individual app — particularly egregious for a weekly publication). Most other attempts at iPad magazine publication has honestly been nothing more than PDF viewers. Dwell (iTunes Link), Zinio, and other apps are fine as simple direct ports of the publications, but they bring absolutely nothing new to the table. It’s akin to watching a VHS tape on a HDTV.

Overall, I really like what Wired’s done here with the iPad edition. Their format seems to share a lot in common with Time’s, in that both strike a nice balance of some of the best aspects of what print offers for copy and image presentation, while slickly working in expanded multimedia content for many of the featured pieces, including audio, video, image galleries, and more.

The current issue features a great (albeit too brief) piece on Pixar, focusing on their design/development process for each film, and includes a neat walkthrough of the work involved in developing a single scene. This is well done, even in the print edition, but the iPad version is able to offer the added feature of actually showing you the finished scene. Yes, it’s a bit of a no-brainer, but it’s still a new feature for a new medium very much in its infancy. And it’s really well integrated.

Some of the advertisers are getting in on the interactivity as well. While this first issue features plenty of static display ads (ported over directly from the print version), a few others do stand out. Cameron Moll mentioned one in particular, and posted a quick video of the ad in action.

I’d gladly jettison the print edition (and feel better about the environmental benefits of utilizing less print) if it wasn’t for one factor — price. When I can get the print edition sent to my door for $20 (or often less, depending on special subscription offers), there’s just no way I’m going to pay 3x that ($5 per issue) for each month’s Wired. I understand $5 as a single issue price (comparable to the existing newsstand price for the print version), but publishers need to move quickly toward a subscription model for this content.

Whether that’s achieved via the iTunes Season Pass model, or through in-app purchases, I don’t really know or particularly care. But my hunch is that there will be few people who are going to buy more than an occasional issue at this price. Sure, the first issue will probably do well, as folks check out the new format and buy it for the shear novelty of it (it is a great demo for folks new to the iPad).

But that novelty won’t last for long at $60 per year.

Wired Magazine iPad App (iTunes Link)

 
 

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