So, back in December the Swedish publisher Bonnier collaborated with designers BERG London to conceptualise a vision for digital magazines on touchscreen devices. They did a pretty decent job – the most compelling vision, I thought, amongst a rash of others that were around or have come out since.
Well now the vision has been brought to life in the form of an iPad app for Popular Science magazine, called Popular Science +. With only 60 days available since Apple announced the iPad, they've had 6 editorial teams in 3 countries working to re-imagine the form of magazines. Popular Science+ is available now in iTunes but a preview (below) has been made available at the Bonnier Beta Lab.
As before, I like that they have deconstructed the magazine form and reassembled it with a design vision that captures some of what makes magazine consumption such an inherently unique experience, and balanced it with the particular attributes of digital consumption. To paraphrase Sarah Ohrvall at Bonnier R & D (who kindly sent me a note about the launch) rather than producing what BERG call “a wrist screen running clock software”, they have built the watch. The real question is how ready publishers (with already stretched resources and long priority lists) are to serve another platform. For those lucky enough to already have an iPad, you can download the app here.
Mag+ live with Popular Science+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.
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