idio Platform

This is part of the Top Magazine iPad series

Under the same publisher as Vanity Fair and GQ, Conde Nast has also released Wired magazine as an iPad app, after much anticipation. Despite its early support for an iPad transition, even before the device was finished being made, Wired’s affiliation with third-party Adobe (which has been axed by Apple entirely) has delayed its app release. What it offers now is a technically revised app but one that Wired seems to be pretty content with.

Our ratings:
1) Usefulness/Value to User
-Being the popular tech industry magazine that it is, you would only expect Wired magazine to relay its print version to the iPad seamlessly. It does give off a very ‘magazine-esque’ feel because the images and content looks very much like its paper feel, except for the fact that flipping through the pages is effortless, with article after article coming with every sideways flick. Issues are almost as jampacked as the print version but with an additional range of iPad-specific content, (sound and video enabled), which really adds to the new-era magazine experience. 8/10

2) Useability/Interface
-As mentioned, articles really are a pleasure to read on the iPad, unlike some other magazine iPad apps. Layouts of articles are incredibly neat yet each page offers you a slew of different kinds of ‘services’; one article entitled ‘Constructing a Song’ not only offers an interesting topic read, but offers ‘touch buttons’ that allows you to hear audio and see each step of Trent Reznor’s song-composing process. Amazing. While the text itself is not particularly small, a zoom in/out pinching feature might be helpful for some pages. 9/10

3) Price/Business Model
-This is a bit pricey compared to other mag apps like Newsweek, at $4.99 an issue, but given some of the features, some might find the magazine experience very muchworth it, especially since it’s the same price at newsstand rate. Some, on the other hand, might not even consider the $5 just to download the app. Considering that you can go on their website and get a lot of the same content—free–, they might have a point. 5/10

4) Additional Functionality
-There are no sharing facilities, so you can’t Tweet an article to someone. You can’t copy text either. While there are more ads than in other mag apps, they are almost fun as they’re interactive and you can watch whole clips without angst. Still, a bit annoying that clicking on some ads actually takes you out of the app entirely. 4/10.

Summary

All in all, Wired Magazine has done a superior job compared to some other magazines in their iPad versions. It is a little pricy compared to others, or even its own online version. Also, while its graphics are only good, not great, on screen, Wired does offer something different in the substance of its content, being a digital revolution mag, and has managed to exploit the iPad’s capacity of sound and video to enhance the magazine reading experience, which is the whole point.

This is part of the Top Magazine iPad series