Ready for the iPad?
March 29, 2010
Articles about the iPad dominate magazine covers and blogs right now. Everyone is anticipating its arrival and all the incredible functionality and experiences it will bring. But how ready is your organization for the iPad in terms of content and in terms of making room for that new little bundle of joy? We’ve compiled a list of five places you should hit on the Web if you have some questions about how the iPad might affect your organization.
Technical Note TN2262
Preparing Your Web Content for iPad
Straight from the lab technicians at Apple/Safari themselves, this article provides a semi-technical checklist for Safari on iPad readiness. The big takeaway in this article is the guide on how to update your user agent detection code because even though the iPad OS will ask for the mobile version of your CSS when using its browser, users will most certainly expect the screen version, so make sure that’s the CSS file your site serves up.
iPad Ready.
Apple is creating a list of sites (not that of your neighbourhood florist, by the looks of things) that are ready for the iPad. If your site is a heavy-weight go to the Apple site and add it to the list. And just for fun, here’s a look at the Wired Magazine iPad app demo to give you a glimpse at what is a mere weeks away for a thrilling new magazine experience.
Prepare Your Enterprise for the iPad
Yes, we’re all excited about the birth of Apple’s new little offspring, but have you made room in your plans for the big change? This article on Tidbits talks about some of the things that enterprises might need to consider about having the iPad join the family. The article touches on security, application support and deployment. In interesting perspective on what the advent of the iPad might mean to the big boys.
iPad: What Does It Really Mean for Content Publishers?
Aptara, a company focused on digital publishing and eBook creation, talks about some of the things that affect the production of digital content for the iPad including, the ePub standard, colour interface vs. e-ink, digital rights management, and the iBookstore.
iPad Review Roundup
Want to glance over what the computing and electronics industry critics are saying about the iPad to find out whether your burning desire is warranted or not? Mac Life Magazine has pulled together a collection of reviews thus far, including views from New York Times, Walt Mossberg (the real one), BoingBoing, USA Today, and PC Magazine among others.
If you know other articles that will be useful to people in preparing for the iPad, link to them in a comment.
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Motion in Your Magazine, How will it Affect Content Quality?
March 19, 2010
The changes to digital content are coming very quickly with the advent of the iPad. It hasn’t even been released yet and already major magazines are revealing digital issues that capitalize on the platform’s abilities in exciting ways, including the ability to use motion graphics. But was does it mean for content quality if budgets are already dangerously thin today?
Last week I wrote a post about how excited I am that the iPad is going to make magazines ultra engaging. This week, we see an an example of one of the ways that that might work with this VIV Mag Motion Cover demo that was uploaded to Vimeo yesterday:
It’s very exciting, to be sure. For some time, it’s been obvious that the line between television and magazines was likely to disappear altogether, and here’s the evidence.
Alexx Henry explains the process of how it was done:
But as I look deeper into the realities of the magazine publishing world today, I’m seeing what seem like some pretty deep problems present themselves for magazine publishers, especially those who still have one foot in both digital and print media.
The product looks good, but the production of it looks expensive. Really, really expensive.
If magazine publishers running the spectrum from Condé Nast to a local rag are all having difficulties cutting the monetary pie in an effort to remain solvent—note I didn’t use the word profitable—the question is whether the iPad is going to make it even harder to produce good content.
While there are those magazines that are into the glitz and glam game probably salivating over the possibilities afforded by the iPad like Vogue, there are others barely surviving wondering how they’ll get there while producing a print version and a digital version akin to VIV. Paying writers and photographers on dwindling ad revenues to produce excellent content is a struggle anyway, but for those who feel compelled to produce motion video for their magazines just because it’s possible just saw their budget take a swift kick in the yarbles.
Of course, if video actually becomes the content with text content playing a supporting role, then that changes things a little. But only a little. Will that content come at the expense of a deeper well of meaningful, rich content?
Further, Alexx Henry explicitly in the companion piece to the VIV demo that they aren’t putting in motion for motion’s sake. Well, of course they are, so ignore that, but when you consider what this all means to overall magazine reading/viewing experience, how the line between editorial content and advertising will inevitably become further blurred to the point of invisibility, then other questions arise about content, its purpose and its quality too.
And then there’s the issue of how magazines and their publishers will still be able to give their readers the ability to ‘clip’, tag or bookmark given the video medium, something which has always been of huge value with conventional print and digital magazines today. But that’s the subject for another post.
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The iPad & the Age of the Magazine
March 9, 2010
I’m more excited about the iPad than I’ve ever been about a technology platform. Ever. That’s because I’ve been a magazine junkie since I was a kid. You see for me, the iPad means a revolution to the very medium I’ve used to stay abreast of almost everything that’s interested my whole life. And it’s going to get better in ways that I can’t yet imagine. But here’s a taste.
Millions of people love magazines. Magazines are familiar, comforting, exciting. They are the harbingers of pop culture in everything from music to fashion to news to science. I’ve always loved them.
I still do. I still subscribe to print magazines. And it isn’t just me. Print magazine sales have been increasing in recent years. I consume magazine content online too.
And while I do love the rich media experience that Internet magazines can give readers through embedded video and functionality, the 3rd dimension of interactivity, the z-axis that can allow readers to drill down and reveal extraordinary depths of information and content, is greatly enhanced with a touch screen device just like the iPad.
I’m a Gen-Xer. That means I grew with and without the Internet. I’m of the generation that straddles the broad line between not knowing what a PC was, and having one dominate my life. I’m still strongly attached to the print medium. I love flipping pages. I love the smell of physical books. I love the artifacts, the experience of holding a tangible object. There’s emotion in it. But I also love seeing and experiencing through interactive mediums and video. I’m a huge fan of documentary films, precisely because my imagination is most stimulated when I can get a sense of how things are, or what they might have been like, precisely because of the emotional charge I get from the experience of seeing and hearing things more directly. Most of us do.
And given that I think a lot about what magazines could be like—not just because I’m a consumer, but because its a goal for my business to be involved in their evolution—consider first my excitement in seeing this concept video, Mag+, put out by Bonnier R&D and BERG:
It suggests a beautiful, deeply intriguing, fluid experience. As the folks from BERG explain:
“The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading, which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reading experience in which high-quality writing and stunning imagery build up immersive stories.
“The concept uses the power of digital media to create a rich and meaningful experience, while maintaining the relaxed and curated features of printed magazines. It has been designed for a world in which interactivity, abundant information and unlimited options could be perceived as intrusive and overwhelming.”
And then consider that the iPad was revealed only 2 months later:
The concept, and the enabling technology, are incredibly exciting. They are realities now.
I was excited at Christmas time to have tried the Amazon Kindle. I read the first several chapters of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book on the Kindle and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience. But that format seemingly doesn’t compare with what the iPad seems to do today.
I’m extremely keen to have the opportunity to read a magazine article on the iPad about my favourite band and in the midst of doing so, flick my finger as though I were turning the page and see archived concert footage or an interview all while having it be searchable, shareable, expandable, and indexable right in an intelligent, context sensitive touch screen. Incredible.
What is perhaps the most profound impact of all of this isn’t for the consumer themselves, but for magazine publishers. Why? Because I, and likely many, many others, would pay for content delivered like this.
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