After reading this article by Joe Clark regarding the Wired magazine iPad app, I’ve come to realize that existing magazines aren’t going to bring us the first awesome iPad magazines.
I’ve downloaded and tried a few, and essentially they all have the same problem. They’re trying to show us, more or less, the same magazine in something resembling the original format on a totally new device.
The Wired app is literally pictures of the pages of the print magazine.
Many people have already pointed out the blinkard pig-headedness of this: You can’t copy/paste text. You can’t highlight a word to get a dictionary definition. You can’t change the size or contrast of the text to meet your readability issues. ALL OF WHICH are reasons to read on the iPad in the first place! (although, I think it doesn’t actually have a dictionary, but it could get one)
I got furious with a co-worker last week because he designed a billboard using his favorite font. Which was utterly unreadable.
We’re DESIGNERS. The implication of that word is that we apply intelligence and problem-solving skills to challenges and come up with something better than random chance.
And I realized Wired came up with this atrocity because to really make use of the strengths of the iPad, they’d have to ditch about 99% of structure, design, and organization of their magazine. Things that work in print, don’t necessarily work on a little touch pad. Little bullet-point boxes with super-short factoids in them might be fine as graphic relief in your printed page layout. But it’s bullshit on the iPad.
Wired doesn’t want to design their magazine twice every month. They want to do it once, and press a button. Monkey-like. No major publisher is going to want to create two versions of their issues each month – especially in the infancy of this new technology.
But someone with things to say and a resource of material to share, WILL want to make a digital ‘zine for the iPad. They’ll make it damn close to right. Articles laid out so as not to insult your attention span. Text that’s selectable. Images that are zoomable (and more than just a token, vestigal zoom!) They may not be anyone we’ve heard of yet, but they’re going to get the ball rolling. Then all the kids will be making their own iPad ‘zines.
Will major publishers ever figure it out and make it work?
