Wired magazine has just launched its iPad edition in the US. The app (built by Adobe) will cost $4.99.
Readers of Wired print know that graphics play a huge part in the magazine and the iPad app allows greater interaction and animation. For example, readers can watch a Lego Lamborghini assembled brick by brick or rotate the planet Mars using their fingers and pull up the spots where various space ships have landed over the years.
The cover features a video clip from Toy Story 3. 41 of the magazine’s 61 editorial pages include some interactive element. The app isn’t perfect though, for example, readers can’t post to Twitter or Facebook from within the issue – surely a major problem that needs to be fixed for future issues? Now we’ll just wait and see how many iPad ‘copies’ of Wired are sold. In these early stages of iPad magazine development, the pioneers are under fierce scrutiny. Only time will tell if consumers see the value in iPad magazines. We know they are good, but good enough for people to buy them in the millions?

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