

Wired's iPad edition arrives, converted from Flash by Adobe - evo_9
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/26/wireds_ipad_edition_arrives_converted_from_flash_by_adobe.html

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mgrouchy
TBH, I think 5$/issue is a bit steep. In Canada I currently pay 40$/yr for my
print subscription and I know that an American Print subscription is 20$/yr,
so the price difference is pretty substantial.

I will be keeping my print subscription until prices are more reasonable.

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jonknee
It's only $10/year in the US if you snag it off Amazon. $5/issue is nuts
especially considering there are no printing or mailing costs.

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zach
So basically, the print version is the advertising-supported version. Because
there are still a lot of print advertisers who they need to please by keeping
their circulation numbers up. It's a weird digital/physical arbitrage.

Normally the digital version of something costs less but people's perceived
value is far lower. Now we have a digital version of a magazine with a higher
perceived value that costs significantly more. Well, if that was going to
happen, it's fitting that it should be Wired who brings that to market.

~~~
jonknee
But yet the digital version is still loaded with ads.

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jcl
So we have:

Translated from Flash to Objective-C by hand: OK

Translated from Flash to Objective-C by computer program: Not OK

The good news, I guess, is that Apple is apparently confirming that
"originally written in Objective-C" doesn't mean "the first concrete
representation of the program was in Objective-C", which means people are free
to prototype an app in whatever language they want, as long as they totally
rewrite it in Objective-C by hand.

~~~
tvon
> _Translated from Flash to Objective-C by computer program: Not OK_

Assuming you're referring to the CS5 feature, it converts Flash to byte-code,
not Objective-C.

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jcl
While it's true that CS5 converts Flash to bytecode, Apple's rejection of
RunRev's proposal suggests that Flash programs would have been rejected even
if CS5 had translated to Objective-C.

[http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/revmobile-and-
appl...](http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/revmobile-and-apples-
iphone-sdk-agreement)

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mortenjorck
The original cross-compile from AIR may have had its own optimization issues.
But oh, the irony if the speed at which Adobe has had to port this to
Objective-C has resulted in a more sluggish app!

Fortunately, it looks like the native app is actually an improvement. Look at
the video from February: [http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/the-wired-
ipad-app-a-...](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/the-wired-ipad-app-a-
video-demonstration/) The paging, zooming, and scrolling really does look
smoother to me.

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Timmy_C
I feel like the $5 price tag plus advertisements might be a result of Wired
passing on the cost of Adobe's misfortune to the consumer.

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cwilson
Or, you know, they planned to charge from the start.

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foomarks
I have a strange feeling we've been here before: Are Magazine apps going to be
the new Flash website?

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thesethings
Ha... I definitely get what you mean. Others have compared these "rich site"
apps to CD-ROM, another dis.

I think they are generally uninteresting, and not "the future," but could be
an OK short-term _product idea_ for legacy media companies. (But not business
model)

Old-school publishing companies have lots customers who might not exercise the
same effort in discovery that you and i do.

Let's compare to familiar territory: tech companies:

Shrinking technology paradigms (giant life cycle desktop OS's like Microsoft
Windows, Sun's SPARC) can launch new products, and make money off of
shrinking, but existing customers. That doesn't mean they're being realistic
about how to survive the future. Or that these "short burst" products are a
good use of their time. (Sun maybe spent too much time denying SPARC's
disappearance. MS seems to be doing just fine with Windows 7.)

Coming back to magazine apps... it's a short-term blast kind of thinking.
Sometimes those things work out great, and get you enough money to survive to
the next era... sometime it doesn't. I won't buy 'em. But depending on what
else is going on inside of their organization, I don't necessarily blame msm
for trying it out.

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foomarks
I'm also thinking that the actual production of interactive material is, when
done relevantly, extremely time consuming. Can the cost of programming and
interaction design stay on budget? Will $5 per issue be able to sustain this
type of setup?

Also, I'm trying to remember the last time when an interactive infographic was
enlightening... [remembering] nope, I can't remember!

For magazine and paper news journalism, I think they can improve their market
by going further into the video medium, not the interactive medium.

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sosuke
Pretty cool that Adobe came through with an approvable version of the Wired
app after the 3.3.1 change. I'm sure it was originally going to be one of the
flagship examples of the CS5 export to iPhone functionality.

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mcantelon
Remember multimedia CD magazines? I wonder if over-the-air distribution will
make the business model work this time.

