The iPad, Apple's latest style-savvy gadget on offer, has created quite a divided stir. Since its unveiling at the beginning of the year and with its official release date in the US being this Saturday, some are preparing themselves for queues around the block and the occasional cat fight for last dibs. Others have been wary and cynical from the start and think: "Great – it’s an oversized iPod Touch that also displays eBooks and runs more robust productivity applications.”
Whether you are an iPad cheerleader or a skeptic, there's no doubting its impact on the future of printed material. eBooks are nothing new, in fact they've been around for the last ten years but devices such as Amazon's Kindle and the iTouch have really launched eBooks into the realm of popularity.
Tomes with beautiful covers, gilded pages and seamless bindings might soon be relegated to archaic symbols of literature past and now glossy print magazines could very well suffer a similar fate.
Big name magazine publishers will be armed and ready to launch their best-selling mags into the eager iPad owners and have been working tirelessly for months to unveil eVersions that will deftly showcase the iPad's capabilities with their own technology savviness.
These issues, (GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired, Glamour, and The New Yorker) will most likely feature interactive features, videos and other multi-media additions and will take flipping through a magazine at the dentist to a whole new level.
Joan Solà, president (Europe and Latin America) of Zinio Global, producers of electronic magazines for major publishers, says: "We believe the iPad is just the start of the migration from paper to digital for magazines."
Scanning the pages of your favorite glossy won't just be for your handheld device of choice either, as Zinio is also working on a magazine application for TVs.
The digital revolution for magazines is surely on the horizon but is it really something that will take off and persevere over traditional print?
I will admit that electronic versions of newspapers are a godsend - no more smudgy black fingerprints or grey stains on light jackets and coats. But I've always loved the smell of a fresh shiny magazine, hot off the newsstand or from its protective plastic shell plucked from my postbox. Flipping through the pages with a glass of Merlot is one of my favorite past times. It's just not the same when it's all digitalised and for me, not worth the eye strain of looking at a screen...
But there is something to be said about the eco possibilities of digitalised publications - but in all honesty will the production of such eBooks and eMagazines really save energy and resources as opposed to the production of traditional printed materials?
Until it has been proven so, I'll be sticking to my risk of paper cuts, thank you.
What are your thoughts? Are any of you eBook readers? How do you feel about the digitalisation of all things read?
Photo courtesy of Longzero
4 comments:
Personally - although it is quite surprising given the fact that I read online most of the time - I prefer printed newspapers, books and so on.
There is something about feeling and turning the pages :)
Thanks for commenting Ralu! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that still enjoys all the sensory aspects of reading a book or magazine!
Hi Sabrina, it is the first time I read your blog and I find your posts very interesting!
As you mentioned, the off media is starting to understand (much more with the "recent" finantial crisis which is voraciously affecting the advertising industry) the need for a radical but in long term switch to the digital support. The list of advantages of the digitalization of the physical standards are never-ending, however, I personally believe that the future is grey: something in the middle. I can't imagine a day in which there is no newspapers, magazines, leaflets, etc.
More consumers everyday, especially those that belong in the younger groups, express a positive attitude towards the replacement of books and magazines by the respected e-versions. Among others they emphasise that it is not required the visit to the bookshore to buy them as you have them available in your lap top within minutes, they take no actual space in order to be stored, while every person regardless of where she / he lives, can equally access an ebook.
All this reasoning it seems quit logical, but I cant find any element of magic in this reality. The magic of visiting a traditional book store, walking around in its corridors and searching for your next reading, finding something that initially you didn’t intent to read but it seems interesting and place it in the same shelve with your rest little treasures.
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