Wired Magazine’s Impressive iPad Demo
Print is not dead, but it’s certainly evolving. Perhaps offering a glimpse into the future of publishing, Wired Magazine’s latest offering is pretty impressive. Its ambitious iPad app (launching later this summer) wholeheartedly takes advantage of the yet-to-be released device’s multi-touch capabilities. Coming originally from a design background in print, I’ve long loathed the awful user experience of seeing magazines and newspapers being pulverized down to an eyesore browser smoothie. (I’m a proud card-carrying member of the ‘I Hate Arial’ club, by the way.) This new app is not only cool in that users will get to visually experience a publication the way it was meant to be seen, but it’s revolutionary in that you actually get to interact with it. Interactive print. Hmm…no longer an oxymoron? I was most impressed with the 360ยบ rotation options for imagery and the oh-so naturally intuitive hand navigation.
Also of note: Unlike a traditional web browsing experience where ads are an evil burden, I would argue that print ads are integral to a magazine browsing experience. The placement of products in glossy publications are intricately woven into the entire experience in a very thoughtful and eye-catching way. Wired again steps up their awesomeness by illustrating how those very same print ads can truly come to life on the iPad in visually stunning and useful ways. It’s like the magic and wonder of a children’s popup book. On steroids.
So ‘cheers’ to the next incarnation of the publishing world. This splashy app is only the beginning of many exciting developments (hello, Augmented Reality!) surely to come.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
