Category: News
Released: May 26, 2010
Price: $4.99
The Future Of The Magazine Has Arrived
The Wired Magazine App for the iPad is nothing short of beautiful. The colors are stunning, the text is easy to read, and the graphics are sharp. For $4.99 you get the most current (June 2010 at the time of this writing) edition which was a 528 Mb download and contained the same amount of pages as the print edition. It loads fast and it is extremely responsive, i.e., no hesitation loading new articles and video.
Navigation
Quite to my surprise there were five, yes five, ways to navigate through the magazine.
- Tap. You can tap on a story on the cover and it will take you to that story immediately
- Swipe. You can swipe left or right to “turn the pages”.
- Arrows. You can use the arrows at the bottom of the screen which show up when you tap the iPad screen.
- Horizontal Menu. You can use the horizontal navigation menu which appears at the top of the iPad screen (far right top) when you tap it.
- Vertical Menu. You can use vertical navigation menu which appears at the top of the iPad screen (far left top) when you tap it.
There is only one thing with the navigation that I did not realize. To continue reading an article you would think that you swipe to the next “page”, when in fact you don?t. You actually swipe down or up. The same applies for ads. To see the rest of an ad, you swipe up or down. I think this is fine, but, there should be some indication that lets me know about this. I missed a lot of content because I was not aware of this. Now I know.
Ads and Interactivity
Something I found really delightful was the ads. Yeah, I actually read them. The reason? Not only were they clean, crisp and stunning but some of them had embedded video which, when clicked, opens up the full screen and a video starts playing right away. I liked this. You can?t get this from static print.
To be fair, there were quite a lot of ads, which I suppose is what I?ve come to expect in a print version. For some reason I did not mind, however, because they were so nicely done. Not sure if this “halo effect” will wear off after time but for now, the ads are amazing to look at.
I suppose that the video effect could eventually show up in the articles as well. That would really take the magazine as we know it to new levels. I have no doubt we will see this soon.
One thing regarding interactivity that I want to mention. There is no “pinch and zoom” within the articles. They are easy to read but if you try to zoom in using the “pinch” method it won?t work. Just be aware.
Some Questions Remain
A few questions remain in my mind about the app. Will there be a subscription price? I don?t mind the price of $4.99 but I would love to have a subscription at a discount. Also, what happens to the content of the June issue when the July one is released?
The Bottom Line
Is this app worth $4.99? Yes. I think it is well worth it. The graphics, layout, interactive ads, and multiple ways to navigate are definitely well thought out and useful. It was a joy to read and I would definitely buy the July issue.
I liked the look of the Wired site, but have heard that it sucks up a lot of memory. Passed on it.
Mike
Mike, thanks for the reply and thanks for reading. Yeah, I will say that it does indeed take up a little more memory than the normal App. But in my mind it's due to the amount of graphics and video that are embedded. I think because it is so popular at the moment, we might see more of these arrive! Maybe it's time for a 128GB iPad?
This is a very good app for magazine readers. The navigation is very user friendly too. And the best thing here is that you can view related videos which you can not have in traditional magazines. This is simply cool app. Yeah it takes a little bit memory but that is just the way it is. I love this app.