Magazines on the go
I’ve cut down my printed magazine consumption quite drastically over the past year or so. Magazines are still a big drawcard for me, though the fact that imported publications cost an absolute fortune and are generally at least one month late in arriving at the local newsagent makes the Internet a far better source of information. Nonetheless, magazines still provide a fair bit of information. To continue my addiction, I’ve been purchasing subscriptions to select magazines online. Zinio is a good service with a reader available for both Windows and Mac. Prices for annual subscriptions are insanely affordable. A single issue (at least one month old once it’s actually for sale in South Africa) of a certain photography magazine costs almost ZAR 100.
The same magazine in digital format costs USD 10. That’s about ZAR 70. For an annual subscription – twelve issues in all. Even with DRM and the inability to print more than a page at a time that’s a fantastic proposition. The drawback? Magazines can be read only on a Windows or Mac, and that’s hardly convenient. Until now, that is.
The biggest hope I have had for the iPadCanvasTabletSlate that Jobs will hopefully unveil tomorrow is that it will provide an application for reading magazines. For a long time, I was hoping that an application would be available for the iPhone. Two weeks ago, I was ecstatic upon discovering that Zinio has ported a reader to the iPhone. Without doubt that means a similar application will be available to run on the new Apple device all and sundry are eagerly awaiting. The iPhone‘s screen is small, but the small selection of magazines formatted for that platform are easily readable. More and more content is being prepared for the iPhone.
Similar to the desktop reader, a library of purchased content is displayed.
Downloading an entire issue is fast and easily possible over an EDGE connection. The files seem rather compact and are added to the library once downloaded. Once downloaded, the magazine can be read without requiring further network connectivity.
The reader is cleverly constructed. At first glance, it would seem as though a lot of zooming would be required to see text more clearly. That would be a disaster from a point of view of reading an article.
The Zinio reader has a clever trick up its sleeve, and this is the reason why content has to be formatted for the iPhone: tapping the small icon at the bottom of a page removes all images and provides a single column view of the text. Easy to read and scroll through. Another tap on the icon at the bottom of the text reverts to the magazine layout view.
It works extremely well. It seems as though the provision of magazine content on a mobile device is no problem at all.The Zinio reader is a free download, but content must be purchased from their online store.
Now, for a device with similar capabilities, but a larger screen… It’s coming…
