iPad Will Be To Printed Magazines What iPod Was to CDs

The Web is abuzz on what iPad will be, will change or not... The early reviews are very positive. In my opinion there is one long reaching aspect we have not paid enough attention to... yet...

Magazines.

We have already had paperback books finding their new electronic homes in e-Readers around the world. Kindle was a great product. Was. Because its time has just passed. A typical "generation 1" e-Reader, represented by Kindle and other less successful platforms, was an almost 1:1 electronic equivalent of the black-and-white paper version. They were very good for static, monochrome text. Books were followed by newspapers, delivered daily in their electronic versions to Kindles. Amazon of course was trying to do the same with magazines, that, by definition, have much richer content, with glossy paper, color fonts and especially color pictures. And here is where the "generation 1" of e-Readers has come short. I tried a trial subscription to Time on my Kindle, but canceled it just after getting the first piece of content. It was completely stripped of everything that makes me buying Time. Honestly Time on my Blackberry (via dedicated application) is a better experience than Time on Kindle.

Now enter the iPad. Color and motion replace static gray-scale. The viewing pleasure is like HDTV compared to the old black and white tube TVs. Plus touch navigation on top of that, replacing old style cursor and buttons. Battery life is shorter, but as long as it is full day, it is irrelevant. Cellphones have trained us the nightly charging habit. Now that we have the Kindle application available on iPad, all purchased Amazon e-Books can be on the iPad too. But magazines will breathe full life and color.

But this is just the beginning. Once unleashed from their static paper form, magazines will have to evolve. Just look at the mind - opening experimental interactive magazine cover, that has been circulating the Web for two weeks now: http://vimeo.com/10207926. This is the future of content - rich periodicals. They will finally have to reinvent themselves. But the opportunity for a second live of Time, National Geographic, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek and many others is here. People will line up to subscribe.

By the way it is interesting to watch the clash of the titans (Apple and Adobe), looking at how the leading Web sites, that used to rely on Flash are investing time and money to dress up and look pretty on iPads. The above Vimeo example used to be flash - only, yet it is on Apple's list of iPad-ready sites, meaning it will work Flash-free. We cannot say Apple has already killed Adobe, but certainly proves a Flash - free future is possible.