Digital Magazines for iPad: An Example Of Bulkiness

Nick Bilton, reporting for The New York Times:

This morning I decide to try a little experiment: I opened up my iPad, clicked on the little Wired icon and purchased the magazine’s latest digital issue. After I agreed to fork over $4, it began downloading. For the next phase of the experiment, I grabbed my car keys, left my apartment and drove about 12 blocks to a local magazine store in Brooklyn, where I also purchased the latest issue of Wired magazine, this time in print.

I didn’t run any red lights, or speed, or park illegally during my shopping expedition. Yet when I returned home with the glossy paper product in hand, the digital iPad version still hadn’t finished downloading to my iPad. Anybody who reads Wired would call this an Epic Fail.

I couldn’t agree more. Having to download hundreds of megabytes, and having to wait several minutes (hours, for many) for the download and install processes to finish doesn’t simply make sense. Especially when the digital magazine you’ve purchased is nothing but a series of static images with no interaction at all. Digital magazines need to be more than this.