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Monday, March 14, 2011

Media / Books Apple Rumored to Make Magazine Publishing So Easy Even an Idiot Could Do It

Posted by on Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 3:31 PM

There have been rumors for months now that Apple is very dissatisfied with what magazine publishers have done with their iPad apps so far; interfaces are clunky, unintuitive and, worst of all, ugly as sin. Some publishers are just dumping PDFs of their print editions into their apps and calling it a day. So that's why I'm inclined to believe that Gadget Daily News's latest Apple rumor might be true:

I’m hearing that Apple is developing a magazine template that will be in a future release of their developer environment and toolkit - Xcode.

This publishing template will create a familiar consistent user interface. It also will facilitate in-app purchases for subscriptions and back issues. Another benefit Apple anticipates is that there will be a plethora of new magazines on the iPad. They believe that anyone will be able to create a magazine relatively easily and have it published by Apple and sold through iTunes.

You should go read the whole post, which theorizes that comic books will be the first real beneficiary of this template. They say the template could be ready by the end of the year. Could the iPad become home to a billion self-published e-magazines in kind of a sequel to the zine craze of the 90s? God, I hope so.

 

Comments (5) RSS

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seandr 1
XCode is a fucking awful developer product.
Posted by seandr on March 14, 2011 at 3:51 PM
Dougsf 2
Looking for a Flash workaround?
Posted by Dougsf on March 14, 2011 at 4:09 PM
Will in Seattle 3
We used to call them APAs.

And we liked them.
Posted by Will in Seattle http://www.facebook.com/WillSeattle on March 14, 2011 at 4:14 PM
Kinison 4
The only drawback to making e-zines easier to author, is they'll end up looking like each other. Kinda how all blogs under Gawker Media all look the same.

Of course, whats easier is HTML authoring, so easy a kid could do it, but thats difficult given the lack of web technologies that Apple refuses to adopt in its mobile devices.
Posted by Kinison http://www.holgatehawks.com on March 14, 2011 at 6:05 PM
5
The only magazine app that matters on iPad is Safari. Apple's attempt to give CPR to the publishing industry is far too late.
Posted by unpaid reader on March 14, 2011 at 6:10 PM

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