
The Magazine: For geeks like us. By Marco Arment - bloodberet
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magazine-for-geeks-like-us./id557744510?mt=8
======
lutusp
> "The Magazine: For geeks like us"

... geeks "like us" who only care about iOS and are willing to pay for
content. Just to be accurate.

Not that there's anything wrong with paying for content. Every time you're
confronted by an ad that you didn't volunteer to look at, you're paying for
content.

But iOS-only seems like quite a limitation, and seems to contradict "for geeks
like us" as the headline appears in HN.

~~~
mjb
I don't have a problem paying for content, but I do have a problem with IOS-
only. Even though I own an iPad, I like to have access to my reading material
in multiple places. I spend a bunch more time looking at my Kindle, for
example, and prefer the reading experience there to the iPad.

A decade ago, something like this published in the closed formats of the time
(MS Word, maybe) would have met with a huge backlash. Today, it seems like
Apple have convinced the market that 'closed' is OK, because it's well-
designed and a little bit shiny. I think it's a real step backward, especially
given the great open standards that are available (like HTML5) and other tools
which give similar control with more accessibility (like PDF).

~~~
guiambros
I also share the concern with an iOS-only model, but give him a break: it's
just a 2 months proof-of-concept.

He needs critical mass in order to make this sustainable in the long term -
without having to resort to ads, sponsored reviews and all sorts of ways to
keep the quality.

The choice for iOS for the initial platform seems obvious: it's much easier to
monetize quickly. And it's easy to add Kindle, Android, HTML5 and others later
on - at the cost of maintaining multiple versions, provided that there's
enough interested paying subscribers to justify the effort.

I think that's exactly the right approach, and a real step forward.

~~~
mjb
> I think that's exactly the right approach, and a real step forward.

I disagree. I think, sales issues aside, that open standards like HTML5 offer
enough to give a good reading experience on most devices. Where it doesn't,
that's typically because the device doesn't support the format, rather than
the converse.

As for how monetizing this is going to work for Marco, I don't know. Maybe
iOS-only is the only way he could get that to work, and that's the right
choice for him. If that's true, I still think it's unfortunate.

~~~
arrrg
Do you think a multi-platform launch would have been possible with about the
same effort? That’s the important question here. Also take into account
developer experience and what skills Marco Arment has.

We are talking about a small project with limited resources and a developer
with a certain skill set. I don’t think you can ignore that.

You can certainly ask for support on more devices and be disappointed that the
magazine in the offered format isn’t a good fit for your devices – but I do
not understand the apparent moral condemnation of that decision. It seems
harmless and morally neutral to me – maybe ill-advised (in that it might doom
the magazine), but not morally problematic.

~~~
revelation
Really? Do we really have to make up stuff now in excuse? _The guy runs an
Apple blog_.

~~~
arrrg
I don’t really understand what you want to say. Do you honestly believe that
he didn’t make the magazine multi-platform out of spite? That’s just
ridiculous.

------
Osmium
It doesn't surprise me that it takes an AAA iOS developer to finally make a
good iOS magazine. It always struck me that Newsstand was a wasted potential:
full of good publications trying to squeeze their paper format into an app
instead of releasing the same content in a better format.

Does anybody know of "good" Newsstand apps? This might be the first.

I personally think Apple should release a more aggressive Newsstand API and a
best practices guide: e.g. by all means customise your design and experience
but that doesn't mean you should release an app crammed full of pngs that
weighs half a gig. Newsstand apps should be low bandwidth and text-centric.
Why can't I search all my magazines from a central location? Why can't I see a
central list of articles I've favourited from a variety of publications? As it
stands, the only way to do this is with an RSS reader or Instapaper. I'd be
happy to pay for quality journalism if it was in a format that's convenient
and sensible.

~~~
tstegart
Not all of us magazine makers are coders. For a lot of us, its all about the
words, not the format. My little iPad-only travel magazine isn't even in
Newsstand because I have no idea how to code it, but our articles have won
awards. The technology is not as important as the content. I wish I could do
all those things you mentioned, but the fact is I have no idea how. A big
magazine might be able to do them, but it requires a total revamp of business
practices and a restructuring of workflow. And that's hard when a magazine is
staffed by people who will lose their jobs when digital magazines take off.

~~~
Osmium
And that's precisely why Apple should be releasing an API to help you :) to
reduce the burden of coding something yourself. That's one of the big problems
right now. A lot of magazines are using Adobe InDesign to publish their iOS
magazine apps, because that's all they know how to use but it's not helping
anyone because, instead of making something new, Adobe bolted-on iOS
publishing to a tool designed to make paper products. Someone else needs to
step in and provide an appropriate tool that publishers (big or small) can
use.

I think it's fair to say we all want to see a way good journalism can exist in
a digital world. There's no reason these people need lose their jobs if we can
crack this problem.

As an aside, care to share a link to your travel magazine? I'd be interested
in checking it out. I'm travelling to Japan for the first time tomorrow.

~~~
tstegart
Yeah, people have been using InDesign for ages. Its unrealistic to expect
those same people to learn how to code, which means hiring an entirely new
team just to design the magazine for another medium. We're lucky in that we
only publish for the iPad. Here's the link btw:
[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overnight-buses-
magazine/id49...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overnight-buses-
magazine/id493329039?ls=1&mt=8)

P.S. Have fun in Japan, let me know if you by any chance come back with a
long, well written travel essay.

------
k-mcgrady
Interesting. First of all it's very nicely designed and after reading the
introduction I like the philosophy behind it. Taking the Instapaper approach
of focussing on text is interesting. While images and graphics can often
enhance content having nice, plain text on a device the size of the iPhone
makes much more sense. So first impressions of it are good. Hopefully the
content is just as good.

Update:

After reading a couple of the articles it seems pretty high quality and
justifies the price. It's also only the second good Newsstand app I've used
(The New York Times is the other). I've tried several others and they are just
100's of space consuming images, difficult to read especially on the iPhone.

~~~
guiambros
Agree. It's refreshing to see something simple and focused on the content: no
images, no videos, no fancy infographics, and none of the 'bloatware' that
permeates the magazine industry.

Each issue of Wired is now 500+ MB (due to the Retina displays). If you're on
3G or at a public WiFi, it probably takes more time to download than to read
the 2-3 articles you're interested.

In hindsight, you wouldn't expect anything different from Marco. Really hope
he succeeds.

~~~
S4M
> Agree. It's refreshing to see something simple and focused on the content:
> no images, no videos, no fancy infographics, and none of the 'bloatware'
> that permeates the magazine industry.

HN is also like that.

------
navs
I'd love to see this as a webapp. I'm one of those folks that just doesn't use
apps or even sign in to my apple account. I'm sure more of my kind exist.

EDIT: Whoops I see this has paid in-app purchases. I wonder if there's
something out there that can offer as seamless an experience as iTunes in-app
purchases for webapps.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Someone should build a service on top of Stripe to do this.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Stripe for payment, Persona for auth.

------
squarecat
Another victim is seduced by a leading "The", causing any attempt to reference
this publication to become a tragedy of grammar.

~~~
shortformblog
The Strokes, The Walkmen and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs would like to have a word
with you.

~~~
re_todd
And especially "The The".

~~~
cag_ii
The Who?

------
n0nick
Looks interesting. Finally, a use for the dreaded un-removable "Newsstand"
icon on my iPhone.

------
smackfu
It seems like I am the target audience for this. I listen to his podcast,
follow his blog, and read tons of other Apple & tech blogs. And use
Instapaper.

But I really have no desire to pay a monthly fee for more articles. So I guess
I'm opting out of this one.

------
ZanderEarth32
I'd really like to give this a shot but am only interested in trying it on my
iPad which can't get iOS6, so unfortunately, rather than passing on this, I am
being left behind.

~~~
owenfi
It's worth sending that feedback to Marco. He has said in Build and Analyze
that the iOS 5 version is written (just disabled currently) and he is curious
whether he should release support for it in a version rev or if he can abandon
it.

------
janfoeh
Too bad it is iOS6 only, leaving my iPad 1 out in the cold.

~~~
noirman
Wait, iPad 1 supports iOS6 no?

~~~
s_henry_paulson
No, but I can't for the life of me figure out what technical reason is
preventing Apple from allowing this.

If an iPhone 3GS can run iOS6, I am perplexed why the same can't be true for
the iPad 1.

~~~
reaganing
They were still selling the 3GS until just a few weeks ago; it would have
annoyed many customers if iOS 6 wasn't released for the device. The first-gen
iPad, on the other hand, stopped being sold when the iPad 2 was released in
March 2011.

iOS 5 also doesn't run all that great on the iPad, so I'm sure that played
into the decision not to offer iOS 6 as well. The 256MB of RAM paired with the
large screen seems to be the biggest cause for this. The 3GS' hardware isn't
great, but it's only powering a 320*480 display

------
mirtes
All the articles are available on-line at <http://the-magazine.org/1> which is
useful for sharing and reading on other devices.

I wonder how much evil it would be to create an RSS feed for it.

~~~
ThomasQue
Those are excerpts :/

------
revelation
This mostly seems to be a magazine for Apple afficionados. And thats a
terrible thing, because there is nothing geeky about that company or even
company worship.

------
89a
Newsstand?

ugh!

