Popular Science+ is the first digital magazine to emerge from Bonnier’s Mag+
Popular Science + is the first digital magazine to emerge from Bonnier's Mag+, an ongoing project across all Bonnier titles in the U.S. and Europe to rethink the way magazines can be read on a new generation of full-color, touchscreen tablet devices.
Popular Science+ is a new way of experiencing magazines on digital devices and a first step toward our vision of what digital magazine reading can be. Mag+, Bonnier's digital magazine platform, is a project that began months ago in a collaboration between Bonnier's global R&D task force and BERG, a London-based design studio.
The Popular Science+ digital magazine features simple, fluid swiping motions let readers move horizontally through stories, while vertical scrolling allows them to read an article without interruption or distraction. In the app's unique Look mode, users can tap the screen to make the words disappear, highlighting the magazine's big, bold photos and illustrations. Another tap returns to Read mode.
The Bonnier Mag+ platform and the Popular Science+ magazine are based on 6 design principles:
1. Silent mode. Magazines are a luxury that readers can lose themselves in. Mag + has fewer distractions than the Web. It allows readers to lean back, away from the browser, and just focus on the bold images and rich storytelling. Reduced complexity increases a reader's immersion.
2. Fluid motion. Magazines are easy to browse, and Mag+ replicates that with a story-to-story navigation that's more like a panning camera than a flipping page. As we say, "Flow is the new flip."
3. Designed pages. Magazines are defined by their carefully conceived layouts that give readers an immediate understanding of the content and why it matters to them, a quality that got lost on magazine Web sites. Mag+ brings design back to digital publishing.
4. Defined beginning and end. Unlike the Web, magazines have a defined storyline and flow from front to back. Mag + returns to the notion that something can be, and wants to be, completed. It's the end of endlessness.
5. issue-based delivery. One of the great joys of magazines is that feeling of anticipation when a new one arrives. Mag+ maintains that by delivering full issues at once with all the same content as the print edition, and on the same schedule.
6. Advertising as content. Relevant, attractive advertising is as much a part of the magazine experience as the editorial content, and Bonnier wants Mag+ advertising to include both pin-ups and applications readers can appreciate.
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Comments
Well, this was an utter disappointment on my part. Full 140 Meg download that is slow and provided no partial download and no background download is a definite NO GO for this type of content. Sorry, great idea poor execution, I guess if this is the future then I will have miss out on it. All the best,
Jose, April 30, 2010
No idea why they did it this way, but it seems that the content downloads to the magazine after the app is purchased... And that download doesn't support partials... So, if you don't wait what in my case was over an HOUR for the issue to download, you have to restart from the beginning. Also, issue content does not download in the background - you have to remain IN THE APP to get the magazine. Hope they fix this, and allow downloading in chunks/resumes, otherwise I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole, at least until iPad gets backgrounding for apps this fall. Content wise, interesting, but it was just too damn exhausting to get the content in the first place.
deano, April 15, 2010
OK, I've been playing around with it for about 15 minutes and I must say that I'm utterly disappointed. If this is supposed to be the future of magazines, you publishing lot are in deep trouble. It struck me as the worst user experience in a long time, seriously bottom 5 from the last two years. These are just my major gripes: 1) Where is the overview of the content? It is completely impossible to get a feel for the magazine contents. Yes, there is a "Contents" button but is more of a joke with like 10 items and only major sections. Why can't I jump to a specific article immediately? 2) Why is there no interaction in the pages - on some page (I couldn't find it again despite several minutes of effort) I actually found a proper table of contents, but I couldn't use it to actually navigate? I guess you might have a reason for this, like your idea of endlessness and actually reading from the first page to the last instead of jumping here and there. However, you already introduced the Contents button so the argument falls apart there for me. 3) Horizontal/vertical orientation was f-ed up on several occasions. Like full-page vertical ads being cropped in landscape AND impossible to scroll. Or one occasion where the top part of an article was also cropped when in landscape (or was it portrait) and the page only bounced back when trying to scroll up to that part. Unfortunately I can't give you specific examples due to 1) above - it's impossible to quickly find a certain page. 4) Frustrating navigation. Sometimes horizontal swiping didn't work unless you swiped in a P-E-R-F-E-C-T-L-Y horizontal motion. A fraction of a millimeter vertical motion and you just scrolled down instead. 5) Annoying that you scroll the text independently of the images, but after a certain amount of scrolling the background image changes. I saw a concept video of this app, where the images were blurred while reading the text. Looked much less annoying. I guess some of these things can be fixed or tweaked, and some of them you perhaps get used to, but the main impression is that it is completely and utterly frustrating to consume magazines in this way. If you don't do anything else, introduce a way to get an overview of the content and navigate to it (preferably both graphically and textually).
Tom Airaksinen, April 13, 2010
Are there going to be more details about mag+ coming out? There seem to be intriguing hints about licensing for other magazines, and my own organization is interested. Thanks!
adrian, April 8, 2010
This is really fantastic work. I'd like to speak with someone about a Disney Parks project integration. Up for a chat?
Joey, April 7, 2010
Looks good, I want to try it out! Will we be able to get it from the Swedish Appstore now in April?
Henrik Ahlen, April 5, 2010
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