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TIME on the iPad is a Great Experience Spoiled
By Dave Peterson | April 5, 2010
One of the things I’m really looking forward to experiencing on the iPad (and other tablet devices) is magazine reading. That was something that motivated me two and a half years ago, when I bought my first Kindle. I liked the idea of instant delivery to my hand-held device and an end to paper clutter around the house. Unfortunately, the magazine experience was pretty pale and unrewarding on the Kindle, with its text-only monochromatic presentation. The iPad is a different animal though, with the promise for an eMagazine that could exceed what’s possible in print.
One of the first to try its hand on this platform is the venerable newsmagazine, TIME. Available through the app store, they’ve really done an excellent job with execution of the iPad edition. It has the most print-like feel of any eMagazine I’ve seen. There are ads, but somehow they contribute to the magazine feel and I didn’t find them overly obtrusive. It’s a pleasure to thumb through. Unfortunately, the pleasure is killed by the pricing and distribution model. The app is $4.99. And look closely, that app is not a general TIME reader, it’s a single issue. Each week, you will have to come back to the app store to get the next issue, each time at a price of $4.99. As nice a job as they’ve done, very few potential readers are going to feel like paying that.
On their web site, TIME offers a half-year (28 issues) print subscription for $19.95, which comes to just a bit over 71 cents an issue. By contrast, if I wanted to get those same issues on my iPad it would cost $139.72. I would be delighted to subscribe to an iPad version of TIME for the same price they’d sell me the print edition. I’d even take the ads, no problem there. But I’d also like to see a single TIME app that could pull new downloads automatically as they were published. I want a single icon on my screen, not a digital recreation of the paper clutter I’m trying to escape.
As conventional publishers work to move into the eWorld offered by devices like the iPad, they need to give the readers at least as good a deal as they’d get with the paper edition. TIME seems to be trying to duplicate the bad parts of the paper experience (high per-issue price and clutter) without giving the break of a subscription. It gives the impression that their hearts just aren’t in it, despite the potential of winning a new audience.
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