Posts Tagged Apple

The ABC is making plans to deliver content via rich apps to Apple iPad and a range of similar slate devices that will be launched this year, Adobe’s top designer says.

The first iPads are due to hit the market in March but it was revealed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that several other iPad-like tablets from major PC manufacturers would also hit the market this year, running a range of operating systems including Google’s Android and Windows.

At the recent TED conference in California, Wired became the first magazine to show off a complete, specially designed version for tablet devices, which readers can browse using touch. Many other major titles, including The New York Times, GQ, Vanity fair and Sports Illustrated, have tablet apps in the works.

Wired creative director Scott Dadich worked with Adobe’s senior experience design manager, Jeremy Clark, over six months to design the digital version of the magazine with the help of Adobe’s AIR software.

Aunty expresses interest

In an interview in Barcelona, Clark said he had received an email from the ABC this morning seeking to strike up a similar partnership.

“They think they have a lot of interesting content that they’d like to get out to tablet devices,” he said.

Adobe has already worked with Britain’s public broadcaster, BBC, to bring iPlayer – which lets viewers stream the network’s programs from the last seven days – to desktops using Adobe AIR.

Clark said Australian newspaper publishers had also expressed interest but he could not provide further details. He believed tablet versions of Australian newspapers would be available in the second half of this year, once tablet devices are available to buy.

Clark has not yet heard from any Australian magazine publishers but he expects this to change rapidly as Wired’s tablet edition becomes more well-known.

“The point here is that we are entering a new era of media, where we finally have a digital platform that allows us to retain all the rich visual features of high-gloss print, from lavish design to glorious photography, while augmenting it with video, animations, additional content and full interactivity,” said Wired editor Chris Anderson.

Prepare for tablet onslaught

Aside from the iPad, other vendors are preparing to release similar tablets based around Nvidia’s powerful Tegra chip, which can play full high-definition 1080p video and even run PC games such as Unreal Tournament 3.

Nvidia’s senior technical marketing manager for Tegra, Sridhar Ramaswamy, said he expects 10-15 tablets, most running Google’s Android, to hit stores this year, starting in April.

“It will be a worldwide launch – we’re working with major OEMs so I fully expect these products to be available in Australia,” he said.

In the Wired tablet edition, which will be available mid-year, readers can flick through pages of the magazine by swiping their finger on the tablet’s touchscreen both horizontally and vertically. Because the content is digital, video and photo galleries can be embedded into pages and ads can also be interactive.

One demo showed an ad for Camaro and readers can use touch to rotate the advertised car 360-degrees.

“Right now what we’re seeing is this perfect storm of the classic slate form factor devices that are large enough that they are almost the size of the printed media, so it has the visual impact that you need,” said Clark.

“The touch capabilities make it as intuitive as using a physical book or magazine. People have really become accustomed to the iPhone and all the touch gestures.”

Publishers can retain their familiar workflow

Adobe software tools such as InDesign are already the predominant tools used by publishers to design printed magazines. The same designers can use these tools to create the digital tablet version, while additional staff are employed to build the interactive elements such as video.

The iPad’s Safari browser does not support Flash but Adobe has developed tools to allow Flash-based content to work on the device, provided that the apps are accepted by Apple on its App Store.

Clark said publishers had been putting their content online for free under the belief that online advertising would be enough to sustain their businesses, but the revenues were much lower than expected and online banners ads were not effective in terms of brand awareness.

“Over time as these web ads have been using certain standards people know how to block them out of their brain while they surf the web,” he said.

Furthermore, today, when newspaper and magazine content is published online, the design from the print product is stripped away and the content loses some of its design integrity.

“It’s heart breaking for print designers who spend a week or two designing something and look at their website and see that none of their designs are reflected there. It’s stripped out, it’s boring, it doesn’t really have a visual impact,” he said.

Magazines delivered to tablets using Adobe’s software will still contain ads but these will be better designed, richer pages like those featured in printed editions.

“I think it will be closer to the magazine ad model where there’s almost as much ads as there is editorial content and people value the ads,” said Clark.

But Clark believes not just tablets, but desktops as well, could benefit from rich digital magazines and newspapers that more resemble the printed product.

“A lot of publishers have given up on the desktop because they associate it with the web,” he said.

Information Source smh.com.au