Review: Wired app for iPad takes the pursuit of knowledge interactive
May 26, 2010 - By Justin E. Gehrke
This morning the technology magazine of choice for many, Wired, posted its long awaited app for the Apple iPad. Deviating from the route of many publishers, who offer their publications via well-known apps like Zinio Reader, Conde Naste, the magazine’s publisher, went the time-consuming route and developed its own stand-alone application. What was the hold up in releasing it? Originally, the app was designed using Adobe Air. Obviously, this ran contrary to Apple’s Flash-free policy. Thusly, it was back to the drawing board for a total redevelopment of the original creation.
What was the result of Wired’s endeavor? Is it worth the $4.99 price tag? These are a few of the questions that popped into our minds, when we read the news this morning. As we purchased it in the App Store and began the hefty 527Mb file, we wondered why it was so large. After reading it this morning, though, we are more than pleasantly surprised. Why? Wired Magazine for iPad is exactly the type of app for which Apple’s latest device was designed. Is your first instinct that we’re exaggerating and simply displaying iPad fanboy (or girl) tendencies? Read on. We’re sure you’ll be convinced, as well, once you’ve seen exactly what this virtual magazine has to offer.
When you open the Wired Magazine app, the first thing that grabs your attention is the colors. Enjoying magazines is one of the true joys to be beheld on the iPad. Like many of its brethren magazine readers, the app allows the turning of pages through the touch swipe. This app takes it a step further, though, by providing various methods of browsing the magazine’s pages.
The home symbol takes you immediately back to the magazine’s cover. The slider bar at the bottom of the screen shown below lets readers slide through thumbnail views of the pages, while keeping you on the current page. Tapping the thumbnail currently shown takes the reader directly to the selected page. Alternatively, readers can touch any of the headlines on the magazine’s cover page to navigate directly to the related content. This is definitely a cool feature, when you want to show someone a particular article, in a hurry.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
Tapping the vertical bars shown in blue in the top, right corner of the screen below causes the pages of the magazine to be displayed and grouped by content. Advertisements and one-page articles and features display singularly. Articles with multiple pages display the additional pages vertically, downward.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
Similar to the method above, tapping the horizontal bars shown in blue in the top, left corner of the screen below causes the magazine’s sections, features, and articles to be displayed vertically. Readers can then touch swipe the screen to scroll downward and navigate to the desired content.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
Okay, you’ve found the article you want to read. How does it look? Again, Conde Naste didn’t skimp on the design of the Wired Magazine app. Scrolling through pages is the closest thing to fluid perfection that one could hope for on the iPad. In our in-house testing, two iPads were placed side by side – one with the Wired Magazine app and one with a magazine in Zinio Reader. Hands-down, the Wired Magazine app’s page transitions were faster and smoother. Overall, the Wired Magazine app just felt more responsive.
Again, let’s focus. We are talking about an app for reading. So, how did the actual knowledge consumption factor shape up? The text is crisp and the images crystal clear. No pixelation or blurring could be found anywhere. This is a near-perfect app for those who really enjoy reading.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
Another interesting design feature is that navigation within a multiple-page article is achieved by touch swipe scrolling vertically. Swiping horizontally will take you to the previous/next section.
Admittedly, this is a bit of a deviation from other magazine and book reading apps on the iPhone and iPad. It is something to which we were able to become accustomed pretty quickly and didn’t pose a real issue.
The screen below shows vertical navigation between two pages of an article.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
One surprising feature that we we quickly became enamored with is the embedded media contained throughout the magazine. Once we figured out this little detail, the reason for the 527Mb download quickly became crystal clear.
The article shown in the screen below discusses the 35th birthday of ILM. In an entertaining twist that really made the article come to life, tapping the encircled arrow immediately transported us to an embedded video showing various cinematic sequences made using ILM. Is it a must-have feature? No, it isn’t, but it is something that adds multimedia richness to the content being read.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
Another example of interactive, multimedia content is seen in the next page of the ILM article. Tapping another arrow symbol causes what would be a static image in a traditional, paper magazine to suddenly come to life. It rotated once a full 360 degrees and stopped. From there, the reader could use the touch swipe motion to manually turn it around. Again, is it a must-have? No, but one has to admit that it is a pretty entertaining feature.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
Yet another example of the interactive content provided by Wired Magazine in the iPad app is seen on the front cover. Tapping the encircled arrow above “Play” brought up a 40-second trailer for the forthcoming Toy Story 3 movie.
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
It wouldn’t be a magazine without advertisements. Fortunately, for readers who find the advertisements more interesting than the content, there are plenty of them. Advertisements like the one below, though, actually became more interesting.
Why? What would again be a static image in a paper-based publication comes to life, with an embedded commercial. (We won’t lie. The one we chose was touching, so you might want to have a tissue nearby.)
Click to view the full-sized image in a new window.
What’s the final verdict?
The Wired Magazine app might seem a bit steep. Our first instinct was to ask where the paper was? Why would a digital copy cost the same or more than the traditional version? For some people, saving magazines is a habit. One wants to keep it for reference purposes at a later date. How often do they get discarded in the trash, though? Obviously, paper takes up space. It also doesn’t help out the tree population. Looking at it from a labor perspective, digital design is time-consuming and requires the actual payment of employees to do it well.
For these reasons, the $4.99 digital version of Wired Magazine really does make sense and may be considered superior in many ways. The richness and diversity of the content really does take the reading of it to an entirely new, geeky level.
It would be nice if Conde Naste comes up with a way to allow for an in-app subscription purchase or one that ties in to the reader’s iTunes account. This would makes things easier, since new editions could be pushed out via app updates in the iTunes Store. More than likely, this is part of the plan, since the magazine’s edition is displayed in the top, left corner of the screen, when the menu is activated. Hopefully, this also means that editions would be navigable from the top menu bar. This would also increase the attraction for many readers, since they could easily keep years of editions, without the necessity of renting a small warehouse.
All told, the price of the magazine and the download size was well worth the rich content and pleasurable reading experience. All magazine and reader apps should strive to be like the Wired Magazine app when they grow up. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a magazine to reread.
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Sources:
Wired.com: Wired Magazine’s iPad Edition Goes Live
Direct download link: Wired Magazine app for iPad
