iPad Magazine Subscriptions Test Drive

Following my recent blog post about iPad magazine subscriptions and how the Apple iPad will change the way people read magazines: I’m looking forward to the iPad launch and was a little disappointed to hear the UK launch has been delayed.

So imagine my joy when just two phone calls later I managed to book a test drive and borrow an iPad from one of the magazines I work for.

There is only one word to describe iPad magazines, and that is “jaw-dropping” (are hyphenated words classed as a single word?)

Our digital magazines partner Zinio recently released their iPad digital magazine app so I instantly downloaded it. The high-fidelity of the full colour, full screen pages breathe a whole new life into magazines. The experience is like no other. A simple swish of the finger and the pages turn in a life-like fluid motion. Just like the iPhone or iPod touch you can close or open your fingers to zoom in and out. Movies spring into action and engage you in a way the printed equivalent could never equal. It’s a visual treat.

And if you want to go back to the traditional way of consuming information ie reading, the iPad is amazing in that respect too. In standard mode the text appears exactly as the magazine’s editor intended; it is crisp, clear and legible. But the beauty of the iPad is that you can switch to enhanced text mode, which separates words from images and presents the text in full page mode. Add to that the ability to increase the font sizes and I soon realised that the iPad is the perfect slate computer for reading digital magazines.

The new Zinio iPad app has some great additional features too, such as content thumbnails to make flicking through the magazine even easier. And their library means you can store any amount of digital magazines, creating an archive of all your magazine downloads which you can read over and over again, whether you have an internet connection or not. So if you’ve been thinking about treating yourself to a new gadget and if you love reading magazines then I strongly recommend you wait just a few more weeks and then treat yourself to as many iPad magazine subscriptions as you can.

If you’re looking for iPad magazine subscriptions Magazine Group have got thousands available on their new digital magazines website.

A big thank you to MacUser and Know Your Mobile for the loan of your iPad.