Just after the iPad was shown by Steve, Wired talked about their interactive magazine coming to the iPad. Well, that isn’t hear yet. But, we do have a new version of Zinio esprecially for the iPad… and it is nice.
If you have used their new Version 4 that uses Adobe Air, you have basically ‘seen’ the iPad app. It isn’t the same but the views are very similar. Launching the free app, you start with a overview of the covers of the magazines you have loaded. One of the few complaints is right there… they have included a few magazines access for free which you can’t get rid of so you have to find your paid for subscriptions inbetween.
If you have not purchases electronic magazines, they vary in price as much as print versions do… some are 100 bucks a year, others you can get that year for only $5.50. These are full color magazines that have links out to additional content… and ads. The magazines you know in print but in electronic form. Unlike other ‘eInk’ readers that have issues with showing black and white versions of images.
Launching a magazine the first time, it will download in a minute or two depending on the magazine and your connection speed. Books open with a navagation, thumbnail images across the bottom of all of the available magazine pages. You can scroll through the pages to choose one to view.
The thumbnail view can be cleared for pull page full page viewing by tapping the main image. Tapping the lower part of the screen brings it back.
To zoom in on a image or text to read, tap the area of the page you want to zoom.
The above image is zoomed and shows active text items that will jump within the magazine or out to additional information.
While the list of available magazines is large, there are major titles we have seen in the past no longer here and there are ones we buy every month on the newstand missing… will those be going in the direction Wired is taking? It is doubtful we need only one magazine viewer, there is a world now where iBooks and Kindle iPad Readers live side by side.
