http://carpeaqua.com/2011/12/04/on-magazines-and-the-ipad/
“Reading magazines on the iPad is an exercise in frustration.”
100% agree with all the points in Justin Williams’ post. To add to the frustration- many magazines have created their own navigation schemes that make users tap and swipe like mad in order to figure out what portion of the content will offer some reward.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/zinio-raises-20-million-for-digital-newsstand/
Zinio provides global access to thousands of magazine titles from most major publishers in a variety of languages. The company’s website allows publications to be read online or offline on desktop computers (Windows, Mac OS X and Linux) and mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, WebOS and Android handsets (they just launched their Kindle Fire offering).
I used to hate on Zinio back during their initial iPad launch because of the poor user experience but for a strict magazine reader, you really can’t get a better experience these day. Hopefully this new round of funding will bring on new features to the platform that will enhance the reader experience.
Congrats to Zinio!
It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to share some tips but here’s something I came up with while testing an app I’m currently working on. The app downloads pretty big files at times and it’s pretty useful in testing to simulate slow connection speeds. Unfortunately because of some of the features in the app, it cannot be tested in the simulator so using something like SpeedLimit is not really an option (although this does work really well if you’re testing in the simulator). If you’re working on a fiber optic internet connection all the time you may forget that more often than not, your end user will not be on a really fast connection.
So what can you do to simulate a slower internet speed? It’s actually pretty easy. You will need a computer with with an ethernet connection and an airport card. You will share your ethernet connection over airport with your iOS device. Then you will throttle your connection speed on your laptop and boom … you’ll be crawling at 56kbps before you know it. Here’s the step by step.
1) Connect your mac using and ethernet cable into your router
2) On your mac, open System Preferences and click on Sharing.
3) Set “Share your connection from:” to Ethernet from the dropdown
4) Set “To computers using” to “Airport”
5) You’ll want to set your password and what not in the airport options. It’s pretty straightforward.
6) On your iOS device connect to the wireless network you’ve just created on your mac
7) Open terminal on your mac and there are two things to type here:
$ sudo ipfw pipe 1 config bw 384KByte/s$ sudo ipfw add 1 pipe 1 src-port 80
$ sudo ipfw delete 1
I’m sure there are other ways to do this, but this method worked well for me. Happy Testing :)
Before I get too deep into this post, I must admit, I’m a huge big fan of physical print magazine. My current subscriptions include Inc. and Popular Science. I believe I paid $10 bucks to get both of these publications delivered to my door for an entire year. I must also admit that I have a vested interest in how magazines will work on the iPad which I plan to unveil sometime in the near future. Ok, cool.
It’s been said that the iPad could be the savior of the magazine publishing industry but truthfully I have yet to see a really amazing implementation of a digital magazine that makes me actually want to buy content and interact with the product on a regular basis. A few apps, including Flipboard and Pulse, have made me feel giddy about “consuming” content but after a few days I’ve found myself not opening these apps at all. Not to mention, these apps are not even selling any content whatsoever. I still regularly find myself opening my relatively *ugly* RSS reader and reading content there. It’s just easier on the eyes, for me anyways, to see content laid out in that fashion.
Needless to say, big magazines publishers are currently scrambling to get their content on the iPad. Many have resorted to charging ridiculous prices for “digital editions” of their magazine publications which has turned off many potential customers- myself included. I’m assuming the high cost per issue is really in place to cover the steep cost of production. They gotta pay off them developers some how!
Unfortunately, however, major magazine publishers have very few options at this point.
Hire an entire staff of iPad developers and content creators
The first option magazine publishers have is to hire iPad developers and additional resources to support a new wing of the business. This may require cutting some of your existing staff in order to allocate a budget for your new staff or shifting around some existing roles within the organization. I should also note that this kind of talent search also requires allocating additional resources in the staffing/recruiting department. Great iPad developers are hard to find and even harder to hire full-time so this will definitely be a challenge for magazine publishers.
Wait it out
Soon big magazine companies will either have to create new technology in-house to publish their digital content or wait until this technology has been made available to them. Creating new technology in-house may allow publishers to be first to market however this is a very expensive solution. Developers with the technical know-how to make this happen are very few and very expensive. Publishers who opt to build their own technology for publishing to the iPad or any other digital outlet, will not only need to build the new technology but also have a fully trained team on staff that understands their proprietary software and process.The alternative of course is waiting for the technology to arrive which will making publishing to the iPad easier and faster without having to completely rehaul your company. One of the drawbacks however in waiting for this tech is that it may make a publisher seem late to the game. In the end this is a less expensive option with a potentially higher or equal return on investment.
Dive in NOW!
Like many of the top publishers, getting their content on the iPad as quickly as possible was the solution. Regardless of quality in the end product, the content HAD to be available on the new platform. This is understandable and I think it’s very brave (and risky!) for a lot of this publishers to take the leap first. I also believe we will continue to see publishers take even bigger risks once iPad use becomes more ubiquitous.
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It’ll be really interesting to see how the future of publishing is shaped before our eyes. In a way, publishers are making a huge bet that Apple’s iPad is indeed the best format and device for consuming their content and that’s probably good news to Apple. I have lots more to write about on the subject but I figured this would be a nice introduction to this topic and my thoughts on it.
What do you think about magazines on the iPad?
Ever since I bought my iPad and signed up for Verzion Fios internet my iPad’s wifi connection has been dropping on every use. If you have the ActionTec WiFi router which Verizon typically provides you with, you may find my instructions below helpful:
1. Go to http://192.168.1.1
2. Username should be ‘admin’ and password should be ‘password1″ (don’t worry about the extra characters the text box automatically adds. It’s an encryption feature.)
3. Click on ‘Wireless Settings’ on the top navigation menu
4. Click ‘Basic Security Settings’ from the left navigation menu
5. Switch the Channel to 6 (or one of the standard Channels 1 or 11)
6. Click Apply at the bottom of the page
7. Click ‘Advanced Security Settings’ from the left navigation menu
8. Select WPA2 security (the default is WEP , which is weaker)
9. Set up your pre-shared key on the screen presented (this is your network password)
10. Click apply
No more dropped connections after following these steps!
We’ve all heard the success stories. Indie developers quitting their day job and striking it rich with an iPhone app they developed. Learning how table views work, working with tab controllers and pinging web service APIs into the wee hours of the night. Then making a killing in the app store. With the introduction of the iPad, these stories may come even less often …
What indie iPhone Developers need to learn now:
As soon as I began looking at the iPad SDK, I realized … I’m gonna need a UI/UX Designer now.With the introduction of the iPad, existing indie iPhone developers will be forced to either:
A) learn photoshop and illustrator
B) join forces with a good graphic designer.
Creating a compelling and engaging user experience on the iPad is significantly more difficult than on the iPhone. The iPad screen real estate is greater and you (the developer) need to fill that space up with visually striking goodness.
iPad Launch Day
Today the iPad launched and many developers will head to Apple Stores (or hopefully receive their shipments on time) and instantly load up their iPad app they’ve been previously working on using the simulator. The screen real estate is larger which makes for your potentially mediocre app to look even more medicore. Especially next to some of the apps that have already been showcased. Not to mention a few of the ridiclously awesome apps include: Netflix and Marvel.
What about you Jeff ?
At first sight, I could not place the iPad in my day to day. I already have a kindle and really enjoy reading books on it because of the e-ink. However, Indian Code clients have already gained interest and will undoubtedly be requesting services for this platform. So I will eventually need to own one pretty soon and will need to work closely with graphic designers to produce awesome releases. You can get away with using lots of the built in visual elements, but at some point , if you’ll really want to push the envelope and you’re gonna have to use visual elements outside of the SDK.
All in all, it is a great time to be an iPhone, iPad , and Mac developer. There is a lot of work out there if you seek it. Find yourself a good graphic designer who can be your partner and focus on making beautiful things! So go now and get started!