Wired magazine iPad App tagged:

Wired magazine iPad App

Posted by in iBooks, iPad Apps, News

This is the e-magazine that I have personally been looking forward to and to be honest Im a little underwhelmed….

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Let’s get the problems out of the way first;

The locality.

This is not Wired UK. Which for me is a huge dissapointment as I find the UK version of Wired the better of the 2 formats I’ve read. Advertisements are US centric so I found myself glossing over them quickly as they have no relevance to my UK life. I hope

The Size.

It’s a large download, weighing in at 527mb, ie half a gig! The annoying thing is that most of this download is due to movie’s from advertisers. This is good for advertisers as there is no delay if the user chooses to watch a movie at a locations where there is no network connectivity which gives a nice flowing experience with no missing bits. Im sure Wired could half the download size if it only included magazine movies and sound features.

The Price.

Currently the Wired App retails at £2.99, which when compared to the paper cover price of £3.90 is good, however it is possible to subscribe to the paper version for £2 each (£24 for 12 months) Conde Naste will sort out a subscription model for the Digital version in the future Im told.

The good things.

It’s Wired, digital format…. thats got to be a good thing right?

The format is good, it’s easy and intuitive to navigate pages, in fact there are no instructions when you fire up the magazine. Just a single finger swipe moves you through the pages and allows you to click on extra media when available.

The Index feature shows you all the pages including the downward scrolling pages in a nice overview.

I’ve put a small video together of the UI in action, the Mars feature is nice showing you the mars landers and also watching an Intel Ad.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxpFcjyg87U

Conclusion.

As I stated at the start of the review I’m a little disappointed with Wired overall, it’s Good but not Great. For me Popular Scientist format shows the digital magazine technology better than Wired… just. I think I will stick to the paper version until there’s a subscription model and it’s the UK Wired version.

Rating: ★★★☆☆