iPad App, Book or Magazine Wishes

[Chupa Chupa]

For everyone bashing Zinio, keep in mind they only had a couple months to put the app together before launching it, and without benefit of a real iPad to test it on. I think they deserve a little slack right now, especially when no one else seems ready to make a stab at this market yet. Yeah, it's quirky, but it's better than nothing.

Now one thing that does annoy me about the Zinio app is the time wasting splash screen. I could do w/o that. It's also a little tricky to remove apps -- a little less voodoo there would be nice, also maybe some sort of content manager like the iPod has w/ podcasts where you can tell it how many issues of a title you want to keep on your iPad.

Prices for most magazines are the real problem. A big reason I don't buy magazines anymore is b/c they are too expensive for what they are -- either outdated news or a collection of rewritten press releases. Few mags are worth more than $1 an issue. If they can't make that work even when they are not spending $ on paper, ink, trucks, addt'l insurance then they need to close up shop like any other non-viable business.

 

[MacRy]

Has anyone experienced problems with Zinio rendering pages? I dont just mean the delay when you flip pages as i can live with that. I have recently noticed that if I have zoomed in to view a page and then quickly pinch to zoom back out it freezes the rendering and i have to open the thumbnail browser at the bottom of the screen by clicking on the page and then selecting a page again to unfreeze it. Unfortunately it also jumps me to the end of the magazine so I have to scroll through to find where I was again. Very annoying and has only just started happening in every magazine i have. If I double tap to zoom all the way in and then again to zoom out it works fine but that's a bit of a pain when pinch used to work so well. Anyone else getting this after the last upgrade?

 

[JayMysterio]

Would you say pay more up front and then not have to pay again? If you think about it Apple still get a 30% cut of every $5 so the magazine publishers have to up their prices.

They are still having to create the content and also a new way of distributing it.

If a magazine was shorter but for less money, say .99 cents an issue would you buy it?

Magazines have to pay distributors a percentage to get their magazines to newstands. In the case of comic books it's 65%. Part of the pricing of all magazines includes the physical product itself, which also adds to the pricing. So if magazine publishers are releasing virtual versions and only giving 30% of their cost to Apple, and not producing a physical copy, and still taking money for ads, why would they have to up their prices?

That is an integral issue with Imagazines or virtual magazines, you CANNOT charge the same price for 'nothing' as you do a physical copy, and expect people to accept it right off. It makes no literal sense. Physical copies can always be looked at, passed around freely, without DRM. Inherently virtual copies feel like less, ...so to speak.

This will become a stumbling block for the success of magazines on the IPad, until either publishers lower the price compared to the physical copy, or add some ad sponsored extra like video, music, etc.

I myself get Pixel Mags ICreate magazine and Digital Artist. Here in the states the UK magazine goes for $15 & comes with a dvd with extras. On the IPad, the magazines go for $4.99, and obviously have no dvd with extras. That is an acceptable tradeoff and worth it in my mind. That's how the magazines should be approached.

Now if Pixel Mags had a way to preview the magazines like I can the physical copies, that would rock!

 

[JonboyDC]

I'm curious what problems people have with the Zinio app. I'm annoyed by the delay in rendering when flipping pages. And I agree, the splash screen is a time-waster. But on the whole, what I really wanted was something that gives me the magazine exactly as it appears in print, and that's what Zinio gives me.

I've also found that at least a few magazines have subscription prices comparable to the subscription prices for print versions. There may be a small markup in the subscription I saw for Out, but it was certainly much less than the per-copy price.

 

[MacRy]

I'm curious what problems people have with the Zinio app. I'm annoyed by the delay in rendering when flipping pages. And I agree, the splash screen is a time-waster. But on the whole, what I really wanted was something that gives me the magazine exactly as it appears in print, and that's what Zinio gives me.

I totally agree. I too just wanted the magazines exactly as I'm used to them and that is pretty much what you get. I would like to see the resolution upped so that the text doesn't blur when zooming in but otherwise I'm happy enough with it. Apart from the issue I described in my previous post. As you appear to have the app, have you experienced the same issue or are you able to replicate it?

 

[Brammy]

Dunno if you are aware of this, I messed around after discovering there will be no native ipad stanza. If you extract your iPhone or iPod stanza backup using the iPhone backup extractor, then drill into documents / library in that backup you'll find all your books saved as numbered folders. Inside each folder are a bunch of files, the number with no extension is actually an epub file which can be renamed and synced to ipad where it will open in iBooks with all meta data intact. For safety I opened mine in stanza for windows then exported them as epubs, then stuck them in my macs iTunes library ready to sync.

Does this work with the Ereader app, too?

 

[wombat888]

Jay - my dad grew up in Rock Ridge - went to school there in the 1950s - his English teacher was Jim Hunt's father.

As for Zinio, I could quibble about how it handles page fill-in, but basically, I'm happy with it. You can't load instantly with full resolution without a lengthy download of the entire magazine and a lot more storage used up. Even electronically, there are laws of physics, and something has to give. I think they made rational choices.

 

[MacRy]

Looks like there was an update today to address the blurry text and page turning performance. Will download it in the morning and try it out.

 

[Betsy30]

Does this work with the Ereader app, too?

I just put the iPhone eReader app on the iPad and enlarged it. The font is a little fuzzy, but once I get into the book I don't notice. It's worth it to me to be able to read the ebooks I've been collecting for almost 10 years.

Now if Fictionwise would just bring back my favorite authors.

 

[patrikr]

Looks like there was an update today to address the blurry text and page turning performance. Will download it in the morning and try it out.

I tried it and it's a nice improvement, no doubt. Part of it seem to be in the magazine file itself as the app downloaded an update (or the whole magazine probably) when opening each magazine for the first time post-update.

 

[MacToddB]

FYI, the Zinio version of iPhone Life Magazine is FREE for print subscribers!

Check out http://www.iPhoneLife.com/freeissue

Full disclosure, I write for iPhone Life (http://www.iPhoneLife.com/Todd.Bernhard)

 

[MacRy]

I tried it and it's a nice improvement, no doubt. Part of it seem to be in the magazine file itself as the app downloaded an update (or the whole magazine probably) when opening each magazine for the first time post-update.

It certainly seems to have sorted out some peaple's gripes about the app. Page turning is smooth now and renders almost instantly. Text does take some time to render when you zoom in but at least it's not blurry now. Unfortunately the higher resolution text has hit the smoothness of scrolling around the page when zoomed in but they will, presumably, fix that in a future update. Nice update! Looks like you have to download the higher resolution mags the first time as the above posted has mentioned.

 

[spammerhamster]

I'm curious what problems people have with the Zinio app.

My problem with the app is simple. If I buy a subscription to a mag, I expect it run better than a free grey-internet PDF-download of the same mag.

If the paid version actually is worse than a grey version, why'd I pay?

 

[Brammy]

I just put the iPhone eReader app on the iPad and enlarged it. The font is a little fuzzy, but once I get into the book I don't notice. It's worth it to me to be able to read the ebooks I've been collecting for almost 10 years.

Now if Fictionwise would just bring back my favorite authors.

I found a python script that'll let me bust the DRM on my ereader pdbs, used Calibre to convert them to epubs and put them in iBooks.

 

[billyjoegibsonx]

i want all the current iphone apps to be ipad compatable by that i mean...FULL scren. proper full screen, not just double pixed to almost fit in the screen.

and all i want is is the harry potter books to be in the ibook store. and perhaps that guitar magazine...total guitar? and kerrang to be avaliable in magazines. ill be happy :d

 

[danpass]

Exactly. Someone needs to take a short term loss to make it work long term.

It's possible of course that one development house could make a "Magazine" App, and then the magazines themselves could just provide them with the content. Then issues could be purchased using inApp purchasing. That would be cool.

As for which magazines. I'd like to see FHM and Empire (that would be cool, with Video interviews / film trailers, etc)

There should be an iMagazine store on Apple that sells subscriptions and single issues like Zinio, and at a discounted price. They can use iAds to make up the difference.

I like this idea.

Sort of like the Marvel comics app. Multiple story lines to choose from.

Perhaps a publisher can develop an app that distributes all the titles in its print realm.

 

[virduk]

If Zinio is not careful they are going to give Magazines a bad name. The App is terrible even tho the Magazines offered are all very nice.

I'm still in shock over how the App works. Actually maybe I'm in a state of disbelief its that bad.

Whilst I've only played with the ipod and pc version and trial mags I was quite happy. Well aside from the Apple interference. Having magazines from zinio that are only viewable on certain platforms is annoying as ****.

 

[AZ-GT]

BBC Focus magazine would be great. Ooh and Top Gear.

Top Gear & Evo please

 

[Pienza]

I think magazines are more of a natural fit for the iPad than books, because they are disposable and colorful so the iPad shows them off well. Zinio is a little slow in rendering pages but not bad. But it needs more content, especially more titles that appeal to women such as fashion magazines. The appeal of fashion magazines like Vogue is often more the brands/designers' advertisements than the actual content, so a digital version of the print magazine is much better than reading only the articles online.

There is no US Vogue on Zinio! Oddly, there is only French Vogue, which is cool but quite expensive -- not as bad as the print version flown here from France but still ... I'd also like Lucky, In Style, etc. They do have Harper's Bazaar, Elle, and Marie Claire at reasonable subscription prices, but c'mon people, get Vogue!

I'd also like to see many more travel magazines like Conde Nast Traveler, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, TimeOut, etc. The travel selection now is weak.

Last I'd like Sports Illustrated and college basketball magazines, and maybe EW.

 

[MacRy]

Top Gear & Evo please

I emailed Top Gear and asked about Zinio and received the following response:

Thank you for your email, there is a strong possibility that Top Gear will
be available on the ipad this year. Please keep an eye on our website for
more information! Www.topgear.com

Woo hoo!

 

[raymond lin]

There are three sides to pricing digital copies of magazines and newspapers ...

1 - what the market will support for the content (which is different for different publications)

2 - cost savings of digital distribution vs paper distribution

3 - changes in revenue between print and digital copies

I was at the Hay Book Festival this week and last week and whilst i was sitting down on the bank of a castle enjoying the sun and reading on my iPad a young writer and his friend (Manager or Agent?) sat down next to me and we chatted for a good 45 minutes about the literature business. He was saying how from a new book, say a $20 new hardback, the writer will only take home 10% of that, about $2 from every book. Amazon, Waterstones or any book seller that sell the books will take a huge cut, something like 40%, the publisher will also take another cut, the actual cost of the physical product is a small percentage in comparison of the overall cost of the book. What is more interesting is that he was saying being on the Apple iBook store is now what the new writers trying to do, but he also said that Apple is taking a BIGGER cut than Amazon would for distribution. Basically, in my opinion, if that is true, Apple is taking away in profit any cost saved in printing.

The writer in the end doesn't get anymore money in his pocket than before.