Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Wired Magazine now available

sgibson

sgibson

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 24, 2008
130
0
The iPad edition of Wired Magazine is out now for $4.99/£2.99 and includes video, audio and an interactive map of Mars. Fairly hefty download at over 500meg and, if you're normally a Wired subscribed, it's quite expensive (though I think the Wired subscriptions are criminally underpriced considering the quality of the content).

Of course, my iPads don't arrive until Friday, but this is one app I was really looking forward to. No news yet about subscription options.
 
sgibson said:
The iPad edition of Wired Magazine is out now for $4.99/£2.99 and includes video, audio and an interactive map of Mars. Fairly hefty download at over 500meg and, if you're normally a Wired subscribed, it's quite expensive (though I think the Wired subscriptions are criminally underpriced considering the quality of the content).

Of course, my iPads don't arrive until Friday, but this is one app I was really looking forward to. No news yet about subscription options.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not paying five bucks far any magazine that doesn't feature me on the cover.
 
it ticked all my boxes until you said 500mb ! thats pretty hefty considering im only getting a 16GB pad. Is that for the core app or per magazine do you think? if its 500MB per magazine then ouch.
 
Is it $4.99 per issue or is it a one-year subscription similar to how Zinio works?
 
Also just saw an ad in my Sports Illustrated for their iPad version "coming soon". I'm hoping the rumors of June are true.
 
The publishers are as clueless as the record executives. People aren't buying your magazine today. (A Wired subscription was like $10 last time I subscribed.) They're not going to spend 5 bucks for an issue on their iPad. Price them better.

I'd also recommend they give away a copy to spur interest.
 
Setting the issues aside and just using the App I happen to think Wired 10 up'd any other current Magazine App available for the iPad. It works great, has sharp crisp images, pages move or transition great and the added multimedia content looks and works great.

The issues I hold in reserve b/c I'm willing to give them time to work out are the price and lack of subscription available. They also need to address the issue of having the print subscription by somehow offering a discount or something.
Paying twice is wrong. Last thing that comes to mind which is a small concern but still a concern is the file size. There will be a need to have options to somehow manage it.

So yes, the App still needs some work but they sure did a great job with the user experience thus far.

I'm a print subscriber already so when I compare the two I would rather have the digital version but not without those minor issues mentioned above addressed.
 
I just can't see how creating a 500MB app every month and running it through the AppStore approval process is going to make any sense whatsoever. If I'm traveling, there is no way I'm going to be able to download that behemoth in any reasonable amount of time.

The way forward has been shown to us by the Financial Times iPad app that automatically updates the content and lets you toggle between on-line and off-line modes. The only issue with their app right now is that the full iPad subscription is more than twice what they charge for their DAILY print subscription :eek:

It's currently free, so check it out:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/financial-times-ipad-edition/id370723705?mt=8
 
I just flipped thru it quickly, it seemed kinda cool. I realize it seems rather expensive, but I kinda like the trade off of interactive bits scattered thru the issue. It was kind of like being a little kid reading a pop up book, but you don't know where the pop ups are.

One thing I really like is how smooth & quickly the pages flip. I have apps for the Pixel mags, two as a matter of fact, and those don't scroll as smoothly.

For someone who doesn't read Wired regularly, it's cool to have one issue on the IPad, and feel completely geek.
 
I was underwhelmed by Wired on the iPad, I had high hopes but it seems lacking to me… and I would of preferred the Wired UK version!

I reviewed it here with some video footage if anyone wants to see it in action.

www.ipad-review.co.uk
 
I think size is the issue with this format. Almost 600 megs for mostly static pages.

I appreciate the effort they made adjusting the content based on orientation but it's sort of a waste of effort. They should just force the user to keep it vertical and spend more time on interactive content.

Also every picture should be some seamless idle or loop to bring the page a live.

The Toy Story cover would be perfect for this and totally lends itself to some animation. Woody standing, idle, blinking.. maybe a random animation plays etc..

Maybe in the future.
 
I was also expecting more out of the Wired App after all the hype. While the video and interactive bits are "interesting", they quickly pass into novelty and the navigation and layout aren't especially clever. At the end of the day it just feels like a gigantic PDF file crammed full of ads.

Four consecutive pages of ads? swipe->swipe->swipe->swipe->swipe... Really? I know they need/want to synchronize the advertising with the print mag, but you can't label in-the-box thinking like that as innovative or clever. I'd pay a premium over the standard yearly subscription price for the print mag delivered to my door if it had fewer or even no ads, but I'm not paying a premium for the digital version with the same ad load as the print mag.

In addition to the FT.com iPad app, the other guys that are really pushing the envelope on clever navigation and presentation are the comic book app guys.
 
Wired finally made available their latest edition in the App Store. I really wish it was made available before I received the print copy.
 
srl7741 said:
Wired finally made available their latest edition in the App Store. I really wish it was made available before I received the print copy.
Click to expand...

Is this one any good. Don't want to clog up another 500megs if it's not a lot better than the first effort
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back