Adobe Announces iPad-Focused Digital Publishing Platform

[MacRumors]

Adobe today announced the launch of its new Digital Publishing Platform, integrating the company's InDesign CS5 with other publishing tools to assist print publishers with converting their content for digital consumption on devices such as the iPad. The company points to its experience revamping Wired's iPad application that made its strong debut last week as an example of the power of its technology.

"Adobe's work with WIRED has resulted in a digital magazine format that creates an immersive experience, allowing a publication's unique content, look and feel and advertising to stand out in the digital realm," said David Burkett, vice president and general manager, Creative Solutions at Adobe. "We aim to make our digital viewer software available to all publishers soon and plan to deliver versions that work across multiple hardware platforms. It's safe to say that if you are already working in InDesign CS5, you'll be well on your way to producing a beautiful digital version of your publication."

Adobe touts the features included in its new platform, including embedded video and slideshows, 360-degree interactive images, touch gesture support, and zooming modes. In addition, Adobe's platform facilitates the integration of advertising into digital productions, offering much of the same level of interactivity to spur new ways of reaching customers.

Adobe's Digital Publishing Platform is specifically targeting tablets, smartphones, and other similar devices, and the company plans to make available on its Adobe Labs site "soon" tools to assist publishers in moving from InDesign layouts to digital applications.

Article Link: Adobe Announces iPad-Focused Digital Publishing Platform

 

[Pared]

There ya go Adobe! That's what we want to see.

 

[videoed]

i hope they can start making magazines that take up a ton less than half a gig of hard drive space

 

[R2D2 xx]

Is this an iPad app?

 

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

Awesome news

 

[mKizzo]

I've been looking forward to this. Can't wait to try it out.

 

[AmpSkillz]

Love wired

can't wait to see this but I don't really understand how this gets around Apples recent new rule of not using 3rd party programs to develop or what not

is it because it's developed purely with adobe's platform.. and not converted?

 

[Robbadore64]

i hope they can start making magazines that take up a ton less than half a gig of hard drive space

Exactly! It blew my mind when I saw that. Even though I got the 64 gig iPad I'm still on the fence whether I want give up that much space for this app - scared I may not use it enough to justify but I'm really curious.

 

[Cynicalone]

Apple really needs to make an iMagazine app similar to the iBook app.

There are way to many inconsistencies with the way magazines are delivered on the iPad/iPhone platform.

A simple system where you can sync Magazine issues between all the iPad/iPhone's in your house.

 

[Dodgeroo]

The Wired app is great, but they really need a subscription model for this and for all publications going forward with this system.

I'd love to see the UK Wired on there also, but given how long it took to get a print version, I'm not holding my breath.

 

[shiseiryu1]

We'll see what happens...

It'd be nice if Apple and Adobe could play friendly to make this technology work on the iPad. The Wired magazine app is great and represents the future direction of all magazines. If you're out there listening Apple: "We do not want our digital magazines to be glorified PDFs...we want an interactive standard like what Adobe is proposing. Work with them to make it happen!"

I really hope Apple works with Adobe instead of trying to fight this...I know Apple doesn't like flash on the web but there is no good digital standard for books/magazines (ePub is a boring non-interactive format) and since all these things are made with the Adobe suite Apple needs to work with them!

 

[deannnnn]

That's the spirit Adobe, keep your head held high!

 

[iSee]

Love wired

can't wait to see this but I don't really understand how this gets around Apples recent new rule of not using 3rd party programs to develop or what not

is it because it's developed purely with adobe's platform.. and not converted?

I don't have any info on adobe's product, but one way to live within the rule is to output html that is rendered by the iPhone's native html control. The app used to view it would be static and could be implemented using the native tools.

 

[MacinDoc]

Sounds great for iPad users and publishers...

...and an olive branch in the ongoing Flash Wars, perhaps?

 

[Lord Vader]

Adobe being smart. That's what I want to see. +1 from me.

 

[alex.sebenski]

Love wired

can't wait to see this but I don't really understand how this gets around Apples recent new rule of not using 3rd party programs to develop or what not

is it because it's developed purely with adobe's platform.. and not converted?

You can use third party programs to build applications they just can't be coded in flash. Im not sure what this magazine application is built in but as long as it's not flash it's totally allowed.

Adobe is learning how to play within Apple's walled garden very nicely.

 

[Mkz]

Still clinging on Adobe. Grow a sack and ditch Apple.

 

[longofest]

can't wait to see this but I don't really understand how this gets around Apples recent new rule of not using 3rd party programs to develop or what not

is it because it's developed purely with adobe's platform.. and not converted?

You have to look more closely at what Apple's rule actually states. Apple's rule is that you can't write something in one technology (say, Flash), and then use an interpreter program to port that program to the iPhone OS. Apple's reasoning is because that interpreting process looses a lot of quality and results in a poor result application. Think of automatic translation routines on the internet that translate human language. They may get the basic idea across, but they do so pretty poorly.

What Adobe appears to be doing here is developing a tool that works directly with Apple's technologies (Objective-C, HTML5) without having to be interpreted.

 

[Full of Win]

I'm sure somewhere or somehow, Apple will stick their noses in this.

 

[inlovewithi]

What ever. Steve said Adobe is lazy.

 

[inlovewithi]

i hope they can start making magazines that take up a ton less than half a gig of hard drive space

Well, then the publisher would have to cut out certain things, for example videos and other types of special effects. It's not simply a PDF with jpegs.

 

[flowney]

Need More Details on Output

From my reading of the article, it's just not clear to me what the output of this process is. Is it a native app? Is it a web app? Is it and ePub document?

I might guess that this is a native app that uses in-app purchasing to acquire each new edition as it comes out. Somehow, the customer creates content that is poured into this container. However, I'd rather not have to make wild guesses like this. It would be nice to get something more solid from the article.

 

[RMo]

Little do they know, Apple will soon enact a rule that allows only content created with approved platforms to be viewable on iPad.

 

[al2o3cr]

Well, then the publisher would have to cut out certain things, for example videos and other types of special effects. It's not simply a PDF with jpegs.

Um, yes, it is:

http://interfacelab.com/is-this-really-the-future-of-magazines-or-why-didnt-they-just-use-html-5/

More specifically, it would have been far *more* space-efficient as a PDF with JPEGs. One hopes that most of the hackery seen in the Wired app is a result of a short deadline and not representative of what Adobe's really shooting for.

 

[danielruiz]

Wired app is a joke

The wired app is a joke. If you look at the code you'll see that it's basically just a bunch of photos with a xml framework. Remember when the CDRoms were going to save magazines (also about 500mb) how did that turn out. The app should have been written in html5 (and don't say it can't handle custom fonts because it can). Wired has a great team that works on the website, the job should have gone to them not the print team (also great but the wrong skill set).