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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

GQ Digital Edition on iTunes: Breaking the T&A Barrier?

gq

Condé Nast announced that it will launch a digital version of men’s mag GQ on November 18 in tandem with the print issue.

The digital version available on iTunes will cost $2.99, half of the newsstand price, and there’s no word on whether snail mail subscribers get a discount. Condé says digital GQ be a perfect clone of the dead tree GQ, right down to the ads.

Our mock-up of what GQ might look like, from their online gallery.

Our mock-up of what GQ might look like, from their online gallery.

iPhone fodder? Another GQ online gallery.

iPhone fodder? Another GQ online gallery.

This may be a drawback — to get to the photo spreads of actresses and singers GQ features more or less as mamma made them every month, you’ll have to touchscreen through the ads to get to them on your iPhone, too.

The plus of the iPhone version is that it will have extra photos and videos not in the magazine.

The example given at the presser : if readers tap on a photo of Leonardo Dicaprio, they get photo credits and info about his clothing, plus links to where to buy it. Music stories have audio clips and links to iTunes to download songs. Conde Nast gets a percentage of sales from iTunes, but not clothing or other retailers.

It’s debatable whether the GQ content will push the no-sex barrier on iTunes more than current pseudo-saucy apps, but the men’s mag photos are stellar quality so it will raise stakes aesthetically, even if it doesn’t do away with the prudery. Via WSJ

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli was born in San Francisco and has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. Cultish tendencies and love for DIY increased while living on the Old Continent, where tech came late and cost more in Big Mac index terms. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek, and since 1999 on her site, Zoomata. If you're so inclined, friend her on Facebook or connect on Linked in.

Email the author | Read more posts by Nicole Martinelli.

4 comments

    I was surprised not to read that this application takes advantage of in-app purchasing. A reader optimized for a given magazine format that enables the customer to purchase new issues and archive old issues seems like a natural. The customer should also be able to purchase subscriptions with a sliding price scale (more issues, lower per issue price).

    Maybe that comes later.

    Frank — I was pretty underwhelmed by what they lined up so far, yes it does seem like it’d be a natural for in-app buys…

    We’ll be sure to see more of it can do when it comes out…

    Leonardo Dicaprio? Huh?

    Personally I’d prefer Popular Science, but what the heck.

    I don’t think we really need to pay anyone to get one more look at Heidi’s flapjacks, do we? Is there someone who hasn’t seen them?

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