In the landgrab among reading apps that aggregate content to make it more accessible on tablets and smartphones, one of the early movers, Pulse, is today announcing a deal with magazine publisher Bonnier that will give its offering a significant boost. Bonnier is adding 20 titles from its special-interest magazine portfolio to the Pulse reading stream, including titles like Field and Stream, Parenting, Saveur, Scuba Diving, Skiing and Sound + Vision. Pulse, which already had some 300 content partners on its platform, says the Bonnier deal is its biggest yet. The news comes weeks after rival platform Flipboard expanded in another sense, adding several features to make its newsreading app more Chinese-friendly. The deal between Pulse and Bonnier comes out of an existing, successful relationship between the two around a single hit: back in July 2011 Pulse and Bonnier signed a deal to include one of Bonnier’s biggest titles, Popular Science, Read More

In the landgrab among reading apps that aggregate content to make it more accessible on tablets and smartphones, one of the early movers, Pulse, is today announcing a deal with magazine publisher Bonnier that will give its offering a significant boost. Bonnier is adding 20 titles from its special-interest magazine portfolio to the Pulse reading stream, including titles like Field and Stream, Parenting, Saveur, Scuba Diving, Skiing and Sound + Vision. Pulse, which already had some 300 content partners on its platform, says the Bonnier deal is its biggest yet. The news comes weeks after rival platform Flipboard expanded in another sense, adding several features to make its newsreading app more Chinese-friendly. The deal between Pulse and Bonnier comes out of an existing, successful relationship between the two around a single hit: back in July 2011 Pulse and Bonnier signed a deal to include one of Bonnier’s biggest titles, Popular Science, Read More

When Apple launched its Newsstand feature in iTunes this fall, the idea was that giving newspaper and magazine publishers their own dedicated shelf space – for those who signed on to Apple’s subscription program – would boost sales. And perhaps it has. After the feature launched in October, there were a flurry of press releases and reports about increases in downloads and activity, though every report I saw listed percentage increases, not actual numbers. But here are some from Bonnier’s Popular Science mag app, in convenient chart form. The jump you see in the second week of October corresponds with the launch of Newsstand: The chart comes to us courtesy of Mag+, Bonnier’s tablet publishing software business. And as Mag+ CEO Staffan Ekholm points out, the really promising indicator for Pop Sci isn’t the one-week sales leap of 13 percent — it’s that the the magazine’s growth picked up after that week, Read More

...Foto-Magazin Popular Photography+ (kostenlos; App Store-Link) verkauft sich ab sofort über Apples ‘In-App’-Verkaufssystem. Das Jahresabo für... Read More

Keine leichte Woche für Verleger: Nach Spiegel-Informationen plant das ZDF eine große “App-Offensive“. Nachdem die kostenlose Tagesschau-Anwendung mittlerweile die Download-Marke von einer Million durchbrochen haben soll – 740.000 Klicks standen bereits am 10. Januar auf dem Kontostand – soll noch dieses Frühjahr die öffentlich-rechtliche Sendeanstalt mit einer Online-Mediathek starten. In den Sommermonaten ist eine native Software für die Sendung “heute” geplant. Anfang 2012 steht nach Meldung des Spiegels “der Start einer Sport-App” auf dem Programm. Diese Informationen stoßen in einer Woche an die Öffentlichkeit, in der Verleger ohnehin schon staatstragend mit der Apple-Abo-Ankündigung zu kämpfen haben. Der Bundesverband Deutscher Zeitungsverleger (BVDZ) sprach gegenüber der DPA von einem “Preisdiktat” und ‘aufgebrochenen Schleusen, die in der Praxis so nicht funktionieren werden‘. Der Verband Deutscher Zeitschriftenverleger (VDZ) bemüht sich daher “weiter um Gespräche“, da der Eindruck von einem leichten Entgegenkommen von Seiten Apples besteht – “aber die bis dato klare Forderung der Verlage nach Read More

Received a note the other day about the Popular Science+ app for iPad. If you’re into the print publication, chances are you already have the app loaded up on your iPad. If you don’t, now may be the time to give it a look. I’m told the app has been updated to include the December issue, featuring the annual ‘Best of What’s New’ awards. These awards show-off the 100 greatest tech advancements of the year. Everything is covered from automotive to health, home entertainment, space, and yes, even mobile technologies. It’s all good stuff for your geeky side. In addition to the aforementioned awards, there’s also a whackload of new photo galleries, videos and much more… all of it exclusive to the app (obviously you can’t get videos in the print magazine!). Popular Science+ for iPad is available for $2.99 during the month of December. That’s $2 off the normal price. Read More

Apple has posted a new web page highlighting some third-party apps made for the iPad, complete with their own Apple-produced demo videos. Each highlighted app gets a description, App Store link and demo clip. The clips are short and to the point while showing off an app's main features. Among 'The Chosen Apps' are Things for iPad, Popular Science+ and Epicurious (a favorite of yours truly). There's also a great feature on Bonnier, the publisher of Popular Science. It describes a brief history of Mag+, the sub-group created to bring Popular Science to the iPad, with interviews and a slideshow of the app's development process. It's quite interesting. Congratulations to the developers whose apps got featured. We hope to see more features like that one from Bonnier. [Hat tip to David Chartier] Read More

This is what e-magazines should have always been. A sparkling layout, embedded animations, video and audio. Compared to what Wired has done, the other magazines offered, like Time and Popular Science, feel pretty much like tarted up PDF files. Adobe created the translation for the iPad for Conde Nast, publisher of Wired. Originally, it was going to be Flash based, but when Steve Jobs put the clamps on that, Adobe re-did everything in Apple-approved Objective-C. Wired for iPad, released today, is a dazzler. There are 3D renderings you control by moving your hand, videos that look crisp, and some interactive features that are very helpful in getting a full understanding of the subject matter. I especially enjoyed the tour of the Mars missions, the tribute to the Industrial Light and Magic special effects factory, and the interactive view of what is inside Worcestershire sauce. Many of the ads are interactive as Read More

While Adobe’s coders are struggling with Objective C to rewrite Wired, Conde Nast just released another of its publications to the App Store; Vanity Fair. Nice touch, it’s fully universal so one purchase will get you the current issue on all your iDevices. With Vanity Fair, Conde Nast didn’t try to reinvent print on the iPad as it did with Wired. What they did however, is try to provide a bit of extra content on it, called App Exclusives. This month, you’ll be getting an extended version of their “Good-bye Lost” and “One Bewitching Coed” stories featuring Emma Watson. About that, trying to lure us into buying their first iPad edition with screenshots of Emma Watson and Lost is really a great move if you ask me, but enough said. There are two ways to read Vanity Fair on your device. In landscape, VF is simply a digital replica of the paper edition. Read More

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge Published: Friday, April 9, 2010 Category: iPod, iPhone, and iPad Gems: Apps, Games + More Welcome to our first non-gaming edition of iPad Gems! As with our earlier game-focused version, we’re looking at a huge collection of different iPad apps today—20, actually—giving each a relatively brief overview. Unlike the prior column, we’re looking here at apps that either didn’t exist on the iPhone and iPod touch, or never previously received attention in one of our Gems pieces before. They’re unrated for the time being, but our descriptions make clear whether they’re worthy of your time and attention. ABC Player Apart from the app’s unfortunately vertical-only browser design, ABC Player (Free) from ABC Digital is an exciting piece of software—arguably the single biggest step forward in media consumption on an Apple device in a long time. ABC Player is a full-fledged browser and streaming video player for the ABC television Read More

It's pretty clear that new iPad owners are hitting the app store in droves. Books, games and movies are all flying off the virtual shelves. Since you may be suffering from sensory overload, or just looking for some ideas, here are some things I've seen that might be worth a look. I tried Time Magazine (U.S. $4.99) and Popular Science ($4.99) magazines on the iPad. The both look striking on the luscious iPad screen, but neither one really excited me enough to get me to subscribe. Time had nice use of video. Pop Sci looked stunning, but didn't have a lot of text. I think both magazines will need to come down below 5 bucks an issue to attract readers. For news, I liked Reuters News Pro, the new NPR app and the New York Times Editors' Choice app. All are free, and make clever use of the screen and finger Read More

The Mag+ digital magazine concept was first previewed in December, six weeks before Apple announced the iPad. Looks like their awesome concept just needed the right tech. Now Bonnier has released Popular Science+, the iPad edition of Popular Science magazine. Not content with just porting an issue's pages over to the iPad, Bonnier collaborated with BERG, a London-based design studio, and created Popular Science+ based on six design principles that rule their Mag+ philosophy. Their rules do a terrific job at explaining the difference between a magazine and a web page and what readers expect from a magazine that they don't expect from the web (magazines have a defined beginning and end, they have fewer distractions than the web, and are delivered on an issue-basis). The video above does a good job in showing how art directors are going to have to think outside the box to successfully transfer a print Read More

After a surprisingly short wait in line at our local Apple Store, where about 100 people lined up for their reserved iPads - and another 100 who didn't have a reservations - we finally took possession of our very own Apple tablet. We will take a closer look at all the apps, hardware and iPad-optimized web sites over the course of the next few days, but here are our first impressions after spending some quality time with the iPad. Without a doubt, the first thing you will notice is the sheer speed of the iPad. Web pages render very fast, switching from landscape to portrait mode only takes a second - even in image and video-heavy apps like the Popular Science app or the ABC Player - and apps open extremely fast. The device itself is light for its size, feels very solid, but still feels a bit heavy when holding Read More

It’s finally here. The moment we’ve been waiting for since that emotion filled day back on January 27, 2010 when the iPad became an official announcement, instead of a mythical object of speculation. The iPad is available today! We at 148Apps have a few app and game suggestions to help make the first day with your iPad a day of happiness and celebration. Here is a list of 20 of apps and games we plan to be checking out today: Marvel Comics Introducing the MARVEL COMICS app, a revolutionary new way to experience the Marvel Universe on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, featuring the world’s most popular super heroes! Download hundreds of comic books featuring your favorite characters -— including Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine and more — on your mobile device with the touch of a button. [ App Store ] Analytics HD The premier app for Read More