Apple Throws A Little Bone To Magazine Publishers
March 14, 2011
On the surface, the iPad seems perfectly designed to serve as a magazine or newspaper reader. For the most part, however, publishers haven’t warmed to the tablet device. Apple hopes to change this by offering a magazine template, according to Gadget Daily News.
The magazine template will enable anyone to create a magazine relatively easily and have it published by Apple and sold through iTunes.
It would include a standard interface, which would help eliminate “the main problems users report…(that) magazine interfaces aren’t consistent from one magazine to another and these interfaces generally aren’t intuitive.”
The proposed template would be available in a future release of Xcode, Apple’s toolkit for iPhone/iPod touch and iPad developers.
While Apple’s goals are noble, they are also self-serving.
Large publishers continue to criticize the company about its new subscription service with many deciding to forgo the iOS platform. A template isn’t going to mean much to these publishers.
However, someone with little or no publishing experience might like the idea. After all, the template would eliminate much of the startup costs and reduce the sting of Apple getting its 30 percent of the app’s profits.
What do you think? Does a magazine template for the iPad sound promising? Leave your comments below.
Apple hopes to implement its magazine template by the end of 2011.
