Much has been made of Apple’s selling a whopping seven million iPads a couple of months around the holidays. However, the number of iPads in the market is still only a fraction of what Internet users represented in 1997, let alone 2010. More telling will be if the iPad, and tablets at large, will be able to saturate the market the way that the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and televisions were able to become a mainstay of the modern household. It doesn’t help that digital magazines are less a technological revolution than a portable iteration of something that already exists. After that hurdle, however, the iPad will still need to sort out its closed app marketplace, Apple’s limited support for subscriptions, and nationally declining print magazine sales.
The final test for iPad magazines will be whether, like newspapers and magazines and blogs and even Gutenberg’s press, people will become habituated to its new format. The success of the iPad will likely come down to whether we buy its distribution model and accept it into the culture, or decide that iPads, tablets, and their magazines, really are just a gimmick.
*Note: This sentence originally read: “The mentality that paper was precious stuck right through to the infancy of the newspaper age in the 1700s. Then Gutenberg came along and made books and other printed materials cheaper, faster, and easier to make.” It has been changed for clarity.
I'd say that the most important factor hindering the rate of tablet magazine adoption is the entry cost. I seriously doubt anyone but the most well-off gadget fanatics will invest hundreds in an iPad or other tablet expressly for the purpose of reading digital magazines. My guess is that for those folks who just have to have access to digital magazines, a Kindle or Nook is a much more likely option. Another thing I'm hearing is that many people aren't as enamored with the form factor of the iPad as Apple might have hoped, and that it's rather fragile and not as simple to transport as its printed counterparts. Another major question is whether digital mags are even worth the trouble at all. I personally find them to offer a far inferior reading experience than printed mags, so why even go there? Once the novelty of the tablet wears off, I'll bet magazine app adoption will have a very long, slow road ahead before it becomes integrated into our culture as an accepted medium — if it ever happens at all.
#1 Posted by Magazine Design, CJR on Tue 21 Jun 2011 at 12:38 PM
Magazines on iPad look stunning, the ads, the videos the pictures ... every thing looks so classy. I don't purchase printed magazines anymore. I love reading digital magazines on iPads and iPhones. I use Other edition's newsstand for reading digital magazines.
iPad Magazines
#2 Posted by Steven, CJR on Wed 22 Jun 2011 at 06:30 AM
I'm loving reading iPad magazine, current favourite is new scientist! I've found the best place to buy them is here:
Find Digital & iPad Magazines
Thanks,
Chris
#3 Posted by Chris, CJR on Wed 22 Jun 2011 at 07:38 AM
I think one thing missing here is that adoption will come with an increase in value perceived by readers/users. What value is the publisher adding for the consumer to make digital magazines more than just a digital copy of the print magazine?
Until publishers really innovate with their digital magazines, they'll be a fairly small part of the magazine ecosystem. Consumers have far too many things competing for their time and money to worry about switching to digital magazines, at least until those digital magazines offer something that current digital mags and print mags can't. The obvious thing to me is to make the digital magazine a portal for engagement with readers - chats/ustream events with authors/columnists, interaction with other readers, etc...
#4 Posted by Kevin Burns, CJR on Wed 22 Jun 2011 at 11:22 AM
Comparing the emergence of print to the much talked about tablet revolution is hardly balanced. Print emerged when there was no media at all. Now tablets are coming into a space where media is pervasive--everywhere and in a number of different forms. There will be adoption but not replacement of print media. Just another tool in a large media universe. Hardly the monumental event that the printing press was to mass media. It practically created mass media.
#5 Posted by Mark, CJR on Wed 22 Jun 2011 at 11:58 AM
I work in the field and have read hundreds of emails, and thousands of public comments, on the subject. The overwhelming, nothing-else-matters, reason for the decline in readership was that magazines didn't have well-priced subscriptions available when they launched. In print, if Wired, Elle, Popular Mechanics, The Oprah Magazine and others were newsstand-only they'd be tiny publications. No one was going to pay $50 a year (single-issue price times 12) for a year of iPad access to a monthly. Now that subs are widely available, we'll have to see what happens. Is it too late? Are other reading experiences on tablets more compelling? Or will these apps find a strong audience? The experiment has really just begun.
#6 Posted by Jake Roberts, CJR on Wed 22 Jun 2011 at 01:48 PM
@Mark: I absolutely agree that the iPad won't erase print media. The argument was more about the inevitable progression of iPad magazine sales. A spike of interest, followed by a dip in sales (the pre-holiday stats mentioned) and then gradual acceptance as it becomes accepted as a means of content delivery. The comparison was then how other media followed similar (though not mirror) patterns when they were first introduced.
@Jake Roberts: Interesting point and I think that's a huge part of the puzzle. As far as I can tell, most magazines are not happy about Apple's subscription plan. It will be interesting to see who buckles first: an audience (us) used to iTunes like convenience but with a cost, or Apple who may need to get more people signing up for digital subscriptions.
@Everyone: Thanks for the wonderful comments, looking forward to see where this conversation takes us.
#7 Posted by Zack, CJR on Wed 22 Jun 2011 at 02:19 PM
I don't know why Zack and Mark don't think tablets and other new digital media won't erase print media. I haven't even written on paper in years, all my writing is on digital devices. The only people who still buy printed publications are old people, who are just used to reading off paper. I have handled a print magazine or newspaper maybe a dozen times in the last 5 years, while I regularly read many different sites online. Look at how many people buy the print edition of the NYT or WSJ versus how many uniques their websites get, it's usually a 1:10 ratio. The writing is on the wall and I find it strange that people seem so reluctant to call the death of an antiquated medium like paper, so much so that they make strange assertions like that.
#8 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Wed 22 Jun 2011 at 09:52 PM
I think it's simple. Until the technology to replace the experience of paper (the bathroom/subway test) becomes widely available, all this will be beta. The iPad is a step toward replicating the experience of paper -- portable and easy to read. When the technology becomes more fluid in its user experience -- mostly, size and shape, as well as durability of the device (how much can you fold, spindle and mutilate before it stops working?) -- and the price point works, people will snap it up. The success will have nothing to do with the distribution method and everything to do with the medium (the medium is the message?). Digital offers informational three-dimensionality that paper lacks -- links, video, etc. It's just not portable, durable and shapeable. Chances are it will be in the near future ...
#9 Posted by Sito Negron, CJR on Tue 5 Jul 2011 at 04:32 PM
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#10 Posted by AcevedoMarguerite, CJR on Sat 30 Jun 2012 at 02:10 AM