Sports Illustrated Previews Interactive Mag For Apple’s Upcoming Tablet

Magazine publishers are drooling at the upcoming Apple tablet because it will allow them to repurpose their content for the digital age with minimal changes — and possibly charge for it.

Wired magazine, for example, has for a long time been trying to find a way to republish the mag digitally — but preserve the layout, especially the splashy ad spreads for advertisers. So the tablet is perfect for them. It’s the mag — on a screen.

Sports Illustrated is the latest magazine to join the fray with a slick-looking demo you can watch above.

It actually looks pretty cool. It’s an interactive magazine that preserves the best of the format — the big pictures, the slick ads — with digital-age multimedia and interactivity. Maybe the tablet will save the mag industry after all?

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Via 9to5Mac and Media Memo.

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About the author

Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, Apple Tablet, News, Tablet |

CaryMG
Extraordinary !
I SO cannot wait for the iPad.
It better not cost fuckin’ $2000 …..
shaunathan
Combine mags like that with the ability to take your iTablet to the Time news stand, pick out some mags, swipe the card, and they download to your tablet… If I get to keep them as archives I’d say you’ve got a winner.
It will be pointless if they go *poof* like so many other digital media.
Fuzzypig
Can’t stand sports but the presentation method was truly stunning! The problem is that publishers of SI obviously have an amazing art dept and access to very talented resources to make content that interactive and dazzling, will others be able to do the same? Would be cool if you apply something like that to a console game magazine or something like photography mags, where you can really see on screen would you should be looking to emulate when you try out the tutorial sections for example.
The only thing that did strike me was how much it was like that touchy-feely demo that MS were touting about 3 months ago, explains why Apple kept quiet when MS were banging on about their great touchy-feely thing, as usual Apple have something way cooler up their sleeves!
This tablet thing is going to be way too expensive to start with as all fun tech usually is, but give it 18 months and a drop to a more reasonable price and I could honestly see myself getting one.
http://www.thebadrash.com Tom
Funny… I didn’t realise that Sports Illustrated actually covered sport. You live and learn.
Evan
So it ll be like a website! Whoa.. the future is here!!!
http://www.mr2.org.nz John
Wow, vaporware content for a platform not even announcedby the manufacturer as even being on the cards.
This is getting pretty far fetched now.
http://www.mr2.org.nz John
Ive been gettig iMotor, a UK online mag with content like this for two years now. The only differnce here is bing pitched on a DRM enabled device rather than a native browser.
http://blog.iloveflycasual.com Jason
What makes this different than just a web site for me (a web designer) is the fixed screen size. When designing for the web, you have to take into consideration your audience’s varied screen sizes and design to the most common browsers, etc., which means some people will see the content as you want them to, and others won’t. With the introduction of some sort of tablet with fixed dimensions, it really opens the designer up to use the screen real estate in a much more controlled manner.
I’m a fan.
Joe
What’s with the creepy hands in that video?