Everything goes digital and mobile – including popular magazines. So let’s check out what they are like on the iPad

Everything goes digital and mobile – including popular magazines. So let’s check out what they are like on the iPad. I will examine Fortune, GQ, Men’s Health, Newsweek, Outside, Popular Mechanics, Sports Illustrated, and Time.

The magazines listed below are in alphabetical order:

1. Fortune Magazine
*Fortune magazine is a business magazine that has business stories, insights, information, and market data.
*”LIVE” market news, data, stock quotes, company data, and performance metrics. Other features include video, interactive, and chat.
*Navigation is standard with a table of contents, scroll through thumbnails of pages for quick browsing, and library. No zoom function seems available.
*The app is free. Every issue is $4.99 – higher price than most magazine issues.
*Overall score: 3/5 for being average.

2. GQ
*Magazine focusing on men’s fashion, style, culture, food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books.
*The basic of the basic navigation makes the GQ on iPad the closest thing to a paper magazine: Scroll page by page, drag and scroll through thumbnails of pages, zoom available. Not much more than that though.
*GQ mobile is filled with ads that take up the whole page. This could be quite annoying.
*The app costs $4.99. Every issue $2.99. So once you buy the app, the issues aren’t that expansive.
*Overall score: 2/5 for lack of diverse functions, a lot of large ads, and the price of the app.

3. Men’s Health
*Magazine focusing on men’s fitness, nutrition, life style, sexuality, and other men’s health issues.
*Standard navigation with table of contents, scroll through thumbnails of pages, bookmark, and zoom available.
*Videos and pictures available by clicking directly on the page.
*App is free. Nevertheless, every issue is $3.99.
*Overall score: 3.5/5 for diverse functions, but every issue is somewhat expansive.

4. Newsweek
*A news magazine, if you haven’t noticed…
*Standard navigation function of scrolling through thumbnails of pages and zoom.
*App is free. Every issue is $2.99 – reasonably cheap price.
*Overall score: 2.5/5 for lack of diverse functions, but the price is cheap.

5. Outside Magazine
*Magazine dealing with outdoor topic, such as outdoor sports, activities, politics, art, people, literature, a lot of gears, travel/nutrition tips, and trends.
*Navigation comes standard, with table of contents and zoom. The table of contents seems to be especially well done with small thumbnails and summaries of the content.
*This app lacks scrolling through thumbnails of each pages so that could be a bit annoying. Nevertheless, well-organized table of contents compensates for it.
*App is free. Every issue is $2.99.
*Overall score: 3/5 for being average with reasonable price.

6. Popular Mechanics
*Magazine about science and technology. Cars, drills, engines – you name it. Functions include being able to download and display seismic activity in the area.
*Flashy table of contents. Scroll through thumbnails of pages, bookmark available. No zoom function.
*App is the issue, and it is $1.99 – not so bad at all.
*Overall score: 3.5 for being a good magazine with decent functions and a very cheap price.

7. Sports Illustrated
*Obviously a sports magazine – duh.
*Very diverse in interactive features – slideshows, videos, live score, news feeds, video essays, interviews, and commentaries. A lot of them, you can just click on the page directly.
*Table of contents, scrolling through thumbnails of pages, and bookmark available.
*The app is free. Every issue is $4.99, but you know it’s worth it, if you are a sports maniac.
*Overall score: 3.5/5 for normal people, 4/5 for sports maniacs. Numerous interactive finctions complete with all standard navigation functions.

8. Time Magazine
*Another news magazine.
*Comes with table of contents, switch to a different topic individually by scrolling right or left. Scroll down or up to read each topic. Zoom not available.
*App is free. Every issue is $4.99 – expansive.
*Overall score. 2/5. Lack of functions, but every issue is expansive.

Conclusion About These Apps:
-What basically differentiates these mobile apps from actual magazines is the interactive functions(which some of those magazine apps lack for some reason). So Sports Illustrated must obviously get the highest score for having the most diverse functions.

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This article was published by iphoneapplicationlist.com

Read the rest here:
A Look at the Popular Magazines for iPad