On the one hand I'm very excited by this; I see Marco as an interesting writer/speaker, when it comes to iOS development or when he geeks out about whatever gear he's recently bought. I also expect him to be a great editor, so I'd gladly pay money for a magazine put together by him.
But on the other hand...I'm really wondering why this needs to be an iOS app. Written content is perfect for publishing on the web, I really don't think you'll be running into any speed issues when you release this as a web magazine. And even if you would, why not make the content available both native and on the web?
I'm aware that Marco is an iOS developer, and that a lot of his readers (myself included) will have iOS devices, but for the sake of the open web I'm still slightly disappointed.
Because charging for content on the web doesn't work. While I love the web and wait for a day when we can do micropayments or deep-linking with paywalls or something, the biggest advance someone could make today is to demonstrate a digital-only business model.
LWN seems to be doing fine, they also have a geek audience. The Humble Bundle also seems to be doing just fine without DRM.
I think with quality content people would pay for it. Not enough to make anyone rich, but certainly enough to fund the publication. By targeting iOS only he is missing out on a huge part of the geek universe as potential customers.
Marco Arment just uses the tools he likes to use. I think it’s as simple as that. I don’t think building a website (with paywall, payment processor, etc.) is his idea of fun. By doing it the way he did it he keeps it simple and makes it possible to let this continue to be a one man operation.
It’s very much an experiment and if it doesn’t work he will stop (http://the-magazine.org/1/foreword). That’s it. It’s not an affirmation of the supremacy of iOS as a publishing platform or a subtle diss at Android. It just is.
There's a difference between a bug and being tied to a platform for one application. To be fair, you can always switch to another OS (or even another distro) and use chromium.
While I largely agree (and have found that G+ actually is pretty usable under FF16), the point I was highlighting is that Google are (for somewhat understandable reasons) pushing very hard at the concept of what a Web browser is, and what it's used for (they really, really want it to be an app platform, not just a media presentation tool), to the extent that their site degrades significantly under other browsers. Which creates a pain point when Google's own browser fails to function under my preferred OS.
And I don't really see scrapping that OS just to use a single website. There are other alternatives (VMs, etc.), but they're not particularly attractive either.
The IOS6 specificity of The Magazine really is pretty brain-damaged though.
So, how do we know they are doing fine? It seems they have a bare bones website with some news. Looking at a sponsors page, I see a single company. I don't see any signs of them making real money.
Jon does post roughly annual updates as dredmorbius pointed out; this is the last one I could find on a quick search:
https://lwn.net/Articles/504952/
That's probably slightly more positive than others, which typically seem to be along the lines of "scraping by, subscriber counts are roughly static".
(Please consider subscribing by the way! Lwn is a fantastic resource in my opinion, and I'd hate for it to go away).
Well, it's not clear that charging for articles on iOS really works either. Is anyone making money there? Certainly lots of Smurfberries being sold, but articles?
It seems that that's what he's trying to figure out, as explained on the linked introductory post.[0] He's figuring out what is and isn't necessary in building and distributing a digital magazine.
I believe he is talking about the web's equivalent of newspaper or magazine. Like whole magazine published as a website, where users would pay for each "issue" or monthly access. This model doesn't work, with maybe a few very rare exceptions.
>If you are good at it, you make money hand-over-fist at the moment.
I don't know of any web news site (that's what we're discussing, we're not talking about the general case of "charging for content on the web", e.g software, music, video, etc) that makes money "hand-over-fist". Quite the opposite.
And the "if you're good at it" is tautological fluff --if you are talking about web news outlets.
If you have problems monetizing a news site with quality content and readers interested in it, then it's proof that "charging for content on the web doesn't work", not that "you're not good at it". In content providing, "good at it" just means: the content is good, and a fair number of readers want to read it.
On the web, this has only worked with ad-supported sites (which means you need to attract many many readers, and thus lower the quality of the copy/make it more generic, to do so) or with vertical, industry specific content for audiences that can afford it (the Economist, for example).
So, a not so wild guess would be: the finance industry, and business and policy circles second, that is Washington, Wall Street, Soho and the like guys, with wannabe "sophisticated" money grubbers an influential third.
I think the name (a holdover from the 1800's) puts a lot of people off. As bcbrown said, it is really just the news magazine for smart people. There is a section on Finance and Economics, but it isn't any bigger than the Science section, say.
It would probably appeal to many HN readers, as it has a global, smart outlook. They cover things you don't hear about elsewhere. It is my primary source for news (I listen to the audio edition each week on my commute.)
Not really. It's like Newsweek or Time, but more international, and more in depth. It's certainly skewed towards the financial, but it's really just a news periodical.
I agree. I think the biggest friction point for magazines on the web is that consumers are very wary of paying a recurring subscription for something as nebulous as "access". Just needing to remember a login id/password for a payed service kills the customer experience. So containerizing content in a way that consumers retain the right to old content, centralizing the billing, and distributing it in the Newsstand (as opposed to relying on already over-used channels like e-mail alerts) seems to attack many of the web's biggest shortcomings to me.
I think that this is one of the instances it could work, especially with his audience. Hell, I'd buy it and my experience with anything Apple-related is zilch (thus I can't pay for it).
It's about reach versus monetization. The web lets you build a great audience very fast. The iPad comparatively has a much smaller audience, albeit a potent one.
The introductory article talks about what it's going to talk about and that it's for people "who love the Internet... and even coffee" which doesn't excited me much but either way, given the attention on this HN post, I would like to get a taste of the goods. Any sample articles would be nice otherwise it's a complete toss in the dark for me.
I think what iOS brings to the table here is Newsstand and its subscription model. This is probably more important than any technical layout advantages. The open web is great, but I think its also valuable to experiment with a platform where writers can get paid by readers instead of advertisers. An independent player might have a better chance at that on Newsstand than on the open web.
This is slightly off topic, ... but does anyone feel that Newsstand does not actually bring much to the table? I wish Apple had written Newsstand as a new "special Home Screen page" (like Spotlight). It could have the iBooks backdrop and show iBooks + magazines + Safari Reading List on there. The iPad would be a killer reading machine. :(
Instead, Newsstand is a folder that non-users hate (undeletable) and users probably don't love either, because who would put all the magazines they regularly read into a folder, given a choice?
Marco, I love your insights. I would love to pay you and (by extension) pay the great writers you will find.
But I can't. I've wanted to get into the Apple ecosystem for years, but the hardware is simply too expensive. I've spent hours scanning eBay, NewEgg, and other outlets. Even dated Apple hardware is terribly expensive. I can't justify spending $150 for a 3GS, or $350 for an iPad 1. So I'll have to wait until your content is available on a platform that is easier to procure.
Yes, yes, it's better to do one platform right than to stretch yourself too thin. Certainly don't hamstring yourself in this fashion. Sadly, I confess that I feel like you've passed judgment on me for not having an Apple device, but I'll ignore that feeling. You do not bear the blame for this situation.
So all the best to you, Marco. Let me know if and when you make your content available on the Web or Android. Then I can pay you.
If you are having such a hard time come up with $200 to buy into the ecosystem, I'm sure you have other priorities than paying $2 per month for 8 articles that you may or may not find interesting.
> Sadly, I confess that I feel like you've passed judgment on me for not having an Apple device, but I'll ignore that feeling. You do not bear the blame for this situation.
I think you're reading into this move a bit too much. :) No personal offense is meant (I assume), I'm guessing it's just a matter of developer preference & experience and a knowledge of his target demo. Maybe not 80% of his target demographic who might pay for his magazine own an iOS device, but it very well may be close. In any event, no one's condemning you for not owning an iphone. :)
Exactly, there's no reason for this to be an app, other than the new business model. It's just a blog in an app, not a magazine. In fact, the content will either be from already-free web archives, or will be published later on the web for free. It is just a way to generate revenue from new/old blog posts on top of the web revenue.
Instapaper for iPad is almost ethereal in the brilliance of its reading experience. I assume he wanted to maintain that level of quality for his new product.
>But on the other hand...I'm really wondering why this needs to be an iOS app. Written content is perfect for publishing on the web, I really don't think you'll be running into any speed issues when you release this as a web magazine.
Speed? No. But you'll run into monetization issues, especially if you don't want to attract the lowest common denominator, and intend on quality articles that get fewer eyeballs (= less ad revenue).
I was very excited about this, so I tried installing it on my iPhone 4S, with iOS5, and it says:
This app requires iOS 6.
Really?! Already?? :( I didn't upgrade because I want to keep my maps app. I hope Marco changes it to be iOS 5-compatible, since I know a lot of people who aren't upgrading to iOS 6 until it has decent maps.
Apps that have hundreds of thousands of daily users are already seeing over 80% of their users are on iOS 6 and this is only after 21 days of it being available.
Any app I make from now on will be iOS 6 and up. The amount of time I spend not having to worry about iOS 5 bugs and testing allow me to add more features that will reach the majority of iOS users.
Spending tens (or possibly hundreds) of hours to make something that already works in iOS 6 work in iOS 5 to reach a small subset of iOS users is not worth it for most developers.
What about iOS6 is necessary to display plain text in a magazine format? Was displaying plan text impossible to do before the miracle that is iOS6? It sure sounds like it based on these comments that a text based magazine can only be available on iOS6.
Actually iOS 6 does introduce a set of new APIs for attributed strings that would make something like this a lot more performant and obviate the need to use web views. I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the driving factors in making that the minimum target.
Well, a lot _easier_, anyway; you could in principle do it with Core Text before, and Marco probably has experience in this. He did mention on his podcast that he'd consider an iOS5 version if iOS6 exclusivity is a problem.
And there are over 400 million iOS devices. If you think you can get a large enough percentage of iPad 1 users to make it worth you while then develop for it. I'd much rather spend my time ensuring it works well on 300+ million other devices.
I smell some false dichotomy here. I don't know much about iOS development, but it sounds baffling to hear that iOS 6 is so different that it would take "hundred of hours" just to make sure the app is usable on the previous release.
As always, depends what you're doing, but this is not a crazy statement.
There are certainly fewer bombshells in iOS6 than iOS 5, but it's no stretch to say that adopting iOS 5 early on was worth 100s of hours -- it had huge improvements for dev.
Also keep in mind that the fewer OS versions you target the less testing you have to do.
what I find really weird is why iOS 6 doesn't run on iPad 1? I know there's an issue with memory, but I think if you disable background apps you essentially get past that.
I still only have my iPad 1. I don't use it often enough (maybe 10 hours a year) to justify getting a newer one.
I mean, it's good entertainment on a plane, but otherwise it's just a handy thing to lend to non-technical people who are uncomfortable with keyboards. If I'm not in front of my computer, my phone is more useful for getting to the web.
The Build & Analyze podcasts (which the author of The Magazine hosts) has talked about it multiple times http://5by5.tv/buildanalyze/96
I do appear to have overstated the 80% number but at this point in time but by the end of the year I'd be shocked if it wasn't over 80% based on the rate of adoption and then number of iPhone 5 being sold.
The biggest by a long shot for me is UICollectionView. The open source drop-in replacement to get it working on sub iOS 6 is a fantastic effort, but it's not there yet (animation).
One thing that I find incredibly fast and easy to do on iOS6 vs. iOS5 is implementing post-to-Facebook (and Weibo) using the new Social Framework. In iOS5, you would have to
- Register your app on Facebook
- Integrate the FB SDK (or maybe a third-party wrapper)
- Implement various authentication/delegates/callbacks
- Test that you did all of these things correctly
This might not sound like a big deal but it does save some time.
Not that I disagree that iOS 5 was obsolete the second that iOS 6 was released (the numbers agree with us), but...
if (NSClassFromString(@"UICollectionView")) // or something that makes a lot more sense, but that came to mind immediately
{
// facebook stuff
}
// Twitter.framework stuff
Aside from UICollectionView and AutoLayout that were mentioned, there is much easier way to localize the app (one storyboard and many "strings" files, more ways to easily customize UI elements, and a few ARC things (no more manually managing dispatch queues, zeroing weak references, etc.)
Marco talked about his decision to require iOS 6 in previous episodes of Build and Analyze.
He wanted to try requiring iOS 6, because it would help him write cleaner code internally, but he actually has a version of the app that will work with iOS 5. Depending on adoption of the iOS 6 version, he may or may not "revert" support back to iOS 5.
The adoption rate for iOS6 has been amazing compared to previous versions that weren't OTA. Over 60% in less than a month (according to a statistically significant and diverse user base source: http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/). I recall seeing some iOS5-only apps when it was adopted this widely after a few months.
OTOH, that graph sure has plateaued at around 60% for the last week. I think there is a fairly significant group of iPhone owners who just don't care about OS updates and never even notice that indicator on Settings telling you that you can update.
Sure, it's slowed down - everyone has gotten the pop-up by now telling them to OTA update so those that are left didn't want to right away. But that just puts us in the same boat we used to be; a slower adoption rate as we wait for them to manually do it.
If they don't care, that's fine. They'll start to care as more things go iOS6 only. Just like people stay on XP forever until there's a reason to upgrade.
But 60% of the user base (including those who can't update like iPad 1, not just 60% of eligible) in less than a month? As a dev that make me really really happy and not scoff at considering going iOS6 only.
Oh definitely it's a good adoption rate. I just think a lot of people were thinking "60% in a week! We'll be at 90% in a month!" and that seems overly optimistic at this point. And if it plateaus at 70%, how many developers are willing to cut off 30% of their customer base?
History has shown that won't be the case. We might not be at 90% by the end of the month but mark my words, the exponential growth of iPhone sales in which each new model eclipses the entirety of iPhone sales up to that point has a pretty drastic effect on the old OS percentages.
The combination of the iPad, iPad mini, iPhone 5, and new iPod touch all running iOS 6 and the aggressive older device update strategy means we are pretty much assured 90% by the end of this year, if not sooner. With the notable exception of the original iPad, the iOS devices that can't run/won't run iOS 6 are a drop in the bucket.
The other thing to note is that as devices get older, users tend to enjoy them less and therefore screw around on them less. This naturally results in less app usage, less browser usage, appearing in less statistics, etc...
So while the exact percentage of all iOS devices running iOS 6 might take longer than a year to hit 90%, I suspect app developers will have a fairly different picture painted for them by their personal usage statistics.
There's only 15 million of you, if I recall correctly, and most of them have already coughed up more for the retina one. But there are 70 million iPad 2's and 3's, and I read on MacRumors that Apple expects to sell at least 10 million "mini" iPads in Q4 (not to mention a few more millions of iPad 2's and 3's, and a gazillion more iPad 4's when they introduce them), and almost all of them (except a few who are cranky about the maps, which would soon be forgotten when Google releases its maps app) are on iOS 6.
I too am starting a new iPad app, and it'll be iOS 6 only - because it'll be released early next year, and because it's really, really easier to only target iOS 6 as there have been many improvements in the APIs that literally cuts development time in half.
I have a first generation iPad, too. I had some magazine subscriptions on the iPad that I got for free because I was a subscriber of the physical magazine. With the exception of traveling, I preferred the real magazine. The metaphor of how ads are displayed in physical magazines, paging, etc. didn't carry over well for me in the iPad.
While travelling, I thought it would be cool to have access to a library of magazines to peruse. I ended up mostly just watching videos.
I would be agreeing with the other commenters suggesting that iOS6 adoption rates are good and blah, blah if I didn't have an iPad 1! Since I do, I'm fucked on this, and it's a bummer.
This is why I decided last week to sell my first gen iPad to Gazelle for $160. (Not intended to be a plug: see also Amazon, Apple, craigslist, eBay, uSell, and others.)
I am going to live without an iPad until this mini/nano/Air thing shows up, hopefully soon, and put the dollars toward one of those.
Or you can just wait a month until the authors post the content on their own site. Not unlike having HBO: you pay a premium for content available on HBO's terms, or wait a while until they eventually release it for digital download. In both cases, the choice is entirely on you.
You should actually try out iOS 6 maps: I find them to be much better than the original Google maps.
They're faster, use less data, and are much smoother. The directions are also a lot easier to follow since it adds turn by turn and you get to see the (animated) directions on the lock screen.
Next months cover story "Defending my choice of iOS to launch this magazine"
I am amused that by appealing to the tech audience Marco set his release up to be nitpicked not for content or concept but by platform choice. Fitting but almost too meta.
I think at least part of the reaction to his platform choice is the way he is branding and positioning it. Calling it simply "The Magazine" for "geeks like us" is bound to ruffle some feathers, because there are a lot of geeks out there (disclaimer: I am certainly one of them) who think that Apple, despite their admittedly unmatched ability to create delightful hardware designs, is the primary negative actor out there when it comes to limiting what "geeks like us" are allowed to do with our hardware. And to be clear, I'm not some card-carrying member of the FSF or anything, I think Stallman is far too extremist, but I agree with him as far as Apple's negative influence on computing freedom is concerned.
Had this been initially positioned with the iOS slant it will surely have given the backer and the exclusive platform it will exist for, I doubt you'd be seeing nearly as much grumbling about it.
The more I see of Apple, Microsoft, and others, the less I think so. I certainly don't see eye-to-eye with him on everything, but it's becoming clear to me that we need alternatives that fit his criteria.
Cell phone and tablet operating systems that are completely open, easy to modify (and easy to distribute modifications), and easy to use from a consumer point of view would change my world. I'd use it in a heartbeat, and I dearly hope this is what Firefox OS will be.
I'd like to see a world that's more accommodating for Stallman. I'd also like to see a world that's less accommodating for Facebook et al.
>> "Cell phone and tablet operating systems that are completely open, easy to modify (and easy to distribute modifications), and easy to use from a consumer point of view would change my world. I'd use it in a heartbeat, and I dearly hope this is what Firefox OS will be."
This is something most people would be excited to use. Problem is, it isn't going to happen. I would love it to but look at what happened on the desktop. Mobile looks like it's going the same way. From a consumer stand point closed is usually better - there are fewer problems, better service and little setup. People want this even more on a phone than they did on a PC.
A cheap device with tremendous ease of use and explicit details about security and how to deal with it would appeal to a set of informed consumers, and appeal wildly to a broad set of developers and hackers. I don't see a failure to gain traction among the "average" consumer to be a real problem with execution.
I mistakenly left off a key part-- it needs to manufactured with those goals in mind. Thank you, though. I'll certainly consider this if a viable alternative never arrives, but I'm downgrading from an awful Alcatel Android device to a "dumbphone" (and dropping my data plan) next week.
It is also the same guy able to speak about his server design decisions and for instance about his new SNB Xeons. So I guess even if he doesn't use PC he remotely connects to non-OSX systems. Moreover, I'm not living in the bay area or new york but even where I am, I see less and less PC around me. Myself, I personally use a PC but it runs OS X.
What ruffles my feathers is the name itself--couldn't Marco find something a bit more imaginative and perhaps less pretentious than The Magazine? Or maybe he was aping Gruber with his The Talk Show... Or is it just some uber-geek inside joke?
Sounds good, I'd love to give it a try, but it appears to be tied to iOS. Confining what appears be minimalist text content to an app on a single platform seems a bit silly.
How is it silly? As he's stated numerous times before:
1. He is not an Android developer. He is an individual iOS developer. He doesn't have a fleet of freely-available Android developers at his command.
2. He doesn't have much free time, he spends a lot of time developing his iOS apps or doing his podcasts/website writing which provide him with substantial income.
3. He doesn't see an adequate business reason to support Android (profit vs skills or outsourcing vs annoyances).
Within the context he's laid out, why should he support Android?
You don't need to "support" any platform. It's a fucking blog that you have to pay for. HTTP Basic Auth and Recurly/Chargify/your favorite payment provider here and you "support" every platform in existence.
A magazine is not an 'app' and does not need to be treated as such.
So we're just going to ignore the established purchasing habits of those with accounts that have pre-registered credit cards for argument's sake?
> A magazine is not an 'app' and does not need to be treated as such.
Ask anyone who is currently trying to stay afloat in the magazine industry and I think you'll get quite a different answer. I wouldn't be surprised if most magazines have almost all their growth in the past year or two thanks to redefining magazines as apps.
1. He did pay to have an Instapaper Android app developed.
2. Being the editor for a magazine seems like it will take up a lot of time to me (even though he seems blase about it). Finding writers, chasing them down at deadline time, etc.
3. The parent didn't mention Android. I think a lot of people would be happy with a web option.
He did not pay to have an Instapaper app developed for Android, the company that developed it did so on their own dime and he only gets a cut of the sale price.
People keep mentioning a web option, but Marco just has to use Newsstand on iOS and not care about billing, logins or what have you. He does some of these things with Instapaper, so he would have a good idea of the time and hassle involved.
I also think along the same lines as grandparent, however I would not suggest Android (as you seem to think), but the most obvious platform for news/magazines (text and images): html5.
Maybe he doesn't care. There is no obligation when creating a product to reach the widest audience possible. Everyone when making mobile apps draws the support line somewhere.
Absolutely true. It's his decision which platforms he releases on. It just seems like such a waste of potential audience - iPhone isn't dominant any more, there are at least as many people on Android (especially us hackers) - and it does suck being on the Android side and not having access to this. But it's totally his decision.
So then where are the Android fans launching magazines exclusive to that platform if it's such a lucrative market and iOS exclusivity is motivated only by fanboyism?
Take a page out of Marco's book then. He built Instapaper, an app for taking content out it's original repository and redisplaying it an alternate format. Somebody just needs to get a subscription to The Magazine and copy the content into an iOS5/Android/Web friendly app for republication, he should be cool with it. You could call the app InstaMarco :)
Instapaper is no different than web browsers that reformat pages according to the user's wishes by changing fonts and colors, hiding ads or saving to an archive. The Instapaper server only saves the URL, title and maybe some other metadata; it does not store the contents of pages.
But only when one has already access, doesn't it? When one hits a paywall without access and clicks the bookmarklet it would only show the login page in instapaper.
This is not correct; the bookmarklet sends along the contents of your browser at the time you click it. Thus it can get around paywalls without having to have your login info.
I believe Marco has said on his podcast that URLs added via the API do get slurped from his servers, but I'm not 100% certain on that.
I think ksherlock is wrong. Marco explained somewhere that he doesn't store for a url the content only once (like the url serves as a hash), but stores the content of a page for every account uniquely (his database is somewhat 200 GB). I also did find this:
I don't use Android (so, please, correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't think Android has a single, unified Newsstand-like app to handle subscriptions and that kind of thing.
Isn't Google Play Magazines much different than Newstand? As I understand it Newstand is more of a folder and a framework for periodical applications, while Google Play Magazine is more akin to Google Books or Kindle in which you deliver content to them in a specific format and their application displays that content.
If I'm not wrong, Newstand allows for much more control of the user experience since you build the application yourself.
In general, trying to sell content on the web is problematic. Lots of people who'll be willing to pay $1.99 a month for this by clicking a button, knowing that they can cancel the subscription trivially (and will be reminded by Apple that they have it every month), will not be so happy to pay $1.99 a month where they have to spend time filling in a credit card form, with considerable uncertainty about how they can cancel.
I don't think this is true (game consoles notwithstanding). Throughout history, there have been but a few mediums in use at a single time. Most of the time, all these platforms were supported. (Now, it's any number of content distributers on the web, DVD/CD and Blu Ray. 10 years ago, it was DVD and VHS.) The notion of products bound to a specific platform or medium rose primarily with the popularization of consumer computing, and software likely remains the most platform-specific content available.
Wasn't this why the internet was invented, to disseminate information in a platform agnostic fashion?
Being an app is just to provide a revenue source; if it was a web blog then it would be open to everyone for free. This is the free market at work, if you prefer free blogs then don't pay for it, if you want to pay for content that is very likely found elsewhere for free then the convenience is there in the app. It's the curation that you're paying for.
I hid newstand because I believe that everything I ever could possibly want to read is on the internet for free anyway.
The Internet is an underlying communications platform that was intended to be a set of robust, fault-tolerant, and distributed computer networks.
The WWW is specifically the intersection of HTML (markup) and HTTP (transport protocol) for document sharing over an underlying network protocol (generally TCP/IP on the Internet).
I would be all over this if there was a Kindle option. I don't like reading on LCD screens, especially when I have a gadget that is 100% dedicated to reading.
Yeah, it's odd considering Marco already produces very nice Kindle articles out of Instapaper, so he's familiar with the format. And Kindle supports subscriptions.
In The Magazine FAQ Marco says he's looking at the options for Kindle. I'd be surprised if there's not a plan towards having it given Marco seems to be a very big fan of the e-ink Kindles.
This looks like material that I'd really like to read. Unfortunately I have no way to access it, since I don't own an iOS device.
I wonder why Marco wants to limit his readership to relatively small intersection between iOS 6 device owners and people who are interested in the subject matter. Isn't this rather restricting for him?
What if he did have a big launch, with an app for android and a web version? What if it was a big failure and he lost more money than he made? Would that have made sense? This is a new product that he is testing the waters with. He chose the quickest and most effective way of doing this.
iOS is probably the easiest platform on which to do a subscription publication and reach a large audience. People are often unwilling to pay for subscription content on the web because they have to fill in a credit card form, and there can be problems with cancelling, and Android's subscription magazine thingy is US-only.
Heh... my primary objection to the name "the magazine" is how unbelievably pompous it is. It implies that the magazine is a new concept that he created. Perhaps he can get a software patent on this new- what do you call it "mak-ah-seen" thing. :)
> It implies that the magazine is a new concept that he created.
Not really, it's more like The Transit App or Mail.app. Neither entity is trying to act like they invented transit or mailing. It's just a way of keeping it simple. IMO it's significantly more pompous to shit all over something because of the name.
Am I completely crazy or is there no way to cancel a subscription? I subscribed, but only to give it a shot during the 7 day trial. Currently it is set to auto-renew and charge me $1.99 after 7 days.
It publishes four articles every two weeks for $1.99 per month with a 7-day free trial.
If I get a 7-day trial, how do I know that those 7 days will coincide with the 14 day article release cycle? This doesn't line up, as though it were designed to be confusing.
That sentence is worded strangely - talking about a future project you're organizing as though it's an object of someone else's which already exists. It sounds impersonal and odd. How about:
"The Magazine will publish eight articles per month at a price of $1.99, and we offer a one week free trial."
I guess it all depends on the person, but optimizing the optimal application of two one dollar bills is unlikely ever to be an optimal optimization of most of the target demographic's time, whether they realize it or not.
If I try it now, I get to see four articles for free. If I try it in two months (if it's still around), I get 16 articles for free. That seems like a much better sample of the content -- especially since if I was the publisher I would use my best articles for the launch and they might not be typical.
Indeed the full rate is close to a couple of ad-supported-magazine subscriptions, or less than 1 hour of pay for most of HN. My point was more about the confused wording of the value proposition than the value itself. Confused people spend money less than confident people.
Having just built a bathroom, I can say that in my situation, confused people spend way more money. Certainty with decisions is way cheaper in a building scenario.
A bathroom is a necessity, or a project where you have a definite end goal in mind. An entertainment magazine can simply be ignored in favor of other content.
This is neither here nor there, but I don't understand your "1 hour of pay" comment. Although it was ambiguous, I'm going to interpret it to mean that "most of HN" makes more than 24$ (equivalent to a one year subscription) per hour. I think that this is a gross exaggeration and fairly presumptuous. It find it doubtful that the majority of people on HN make such a sum.
Most people don't pull in money hand-over-fist. For many, 24$ is a non-trivial expense. If not in actuality than in perception.
For those of you wondering why The Magazine is on iOS (first) and not a website, the answer is simple. Marco is just replicating the successful Instapaper business model:
Doing it as an iOS app like this also prevents you from doing "Share to Pocket / Readability" like you would be able to with a website -- keeps you from scraping the content out of the publishers site.
There was no suggestion above to add Pocket or Readability support to the iOS app, just that by picking iOS, he chose a distribution platform that keeps apps much like his own from scraping the content.
If all publications worked this way, Instapaper couldn't exist.
Why not support them? Pocket/Instapaper/Readability support is pretty much a given in most content apps these days. And blocking others from your content definitely goes against the spirit of Instapaper.
It is reminiscent of Microsoft's strategy tax. Making a product worse cause it may harm your other businesses.
You mean, "I sell an app for money, then I spend less than I make." This seems like a quite different business model than what's he's trying here, with a free app but paid subscriptions and paying authors and such.
The Instapaper model is much simpler... but it's clear Marco doesn't really like it much any more, since you only make money by selling the app once but it costs you to support those users forever. So "spend less than I make" eventually gets very difficult if sales trail off.
This is totally the same as Instapaper but instead of an app, it's magazine issues. All paid-subscriptions magazines still appear as free apps on iOS, but they either offer a free sample or a free trial.
In this case, it's a free trial, which makes sense when it's the first issue! But don't be surprised if The Magazine switches to a free sample. That's especially worth noting if you're expecting to optimize for a free trial.
My point is that Marco doesn't have any expertise selling advertising, as many would like him to do, and does have a lot of experience selling through the App Store. He's just keeping the business model as constant as possible.
Try searching for "The Magazine" in the App Store. Shows you how well Apple's search algorithms work. App Store SEO is a black box, and I'm not even sure how Marco would improve his ranking with a name like "The Magazine."
*Note - iPad 1 can see the app in the App Store, but can't use it as it requires iOS 6.
I only partially agree. My suspicion is that the search algorithm -- like many text search algorithms -- drops articles, leaving only "magazine" as the search term, and then suddenly your algorithm is hosed. I think Apple should prioritize a title which, when you drop its articles, is an exact match for the search term, but I've seen other people argue that Apple needs to take into account popularity and star ratings in the result order, which they probably do. And at this point "The Magazine" isn't going to be nearly as popular as other things with "magazine" in the title.
While I appreciate the Zen nature of The Magazine as a title, for search algorithms it may be the equivalent of naming your company "There" (a place I worked at briefly): it's very clever, but it's damn hard to search for.
I think its improving, its within a few screens of the top search results. Not sure if because its getting good ratings or more downloads or if Apple is adjusting the results so that people who search for "The Magazine" will actually find the magazine. Currently at 1:15 pm, Oct 11 its at #54 on the iPad and #39 for the iPhone.
I guess we'll find out how far Apple is behind Google when it comes to search. I couldn't find the ranking for "The Magazine" because it was too far back. But presumably as it becomes more popular, it should move up in the rankings.
For example, when people search on Google, the pages that get clicked on move up in the rankings, until the most useful page it at the top. Hopefully, as people search for "The Magazine" and then download it it will move up in the rankings. But if it doesn't, it shows you how far behind Apple is. I think Google has done this for almost a decade.
Obviously Marco's business plan will be to build up anticipation and demand on other platforms and announce them over time. But I don't see how that will work if the content stays invisible. He will probably need to periodically release sample articles on the web to generate buzz, notice he already did this for the Foreword article.
I've just been looking through the most popular Newsstand apps, and it suddenly occurred to me what's wrong with it: all the thumbnails are of print magazine covers, and they're all too small to read! If that doesn't scream "doing it wrong" I don't know what does.
The cover's meant to advertise the issue and make me want to buy it and I can't even read it. Why does Newsstand not have a "In this issue" tab when you preview the app? Why do I have to buy the whole issue instead of just an article? Why can't I have a central list of articles, that I can search, and favourite and share? The Newsstand API isn't aggressive enough. It needs to bring these publications into the future before we lose them.
Traditional print publications, which are producing quality journalism, need to adapt to new technology and release something like what Marco's doing here instead of trying to cram their paper format into an app with all the cruft that that entails.
Hacker Monthly (that publishes only entries appeared here in HN) now has an iPad app as well, I know it because it was developed by the company of my close friends where I'm an advisor and shareholder. They also provide an Android version for the same publishing platform.
You get something similar but completely different. Content is the king on this one, and if people are writing exclusive articles then you're either not going to see them for a month or at all.
I'll be downvoted for saying it, but this may be where the bloom comes off Marco's rose.
And, this comment's relevant to the HN crowd: most (if not all) successful entrepreneurs owe something to outside factors, but can develop a sort of "survivorship bias," whereby they feel like they're unduly sierra hotel.
Marco made a great app in Instapaper. Is his business and tech sector acumen as good as Instapaper?
First - this is easily, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one the best online Magazine App for the iPad. It's ironic how Time, New Yorker, Popular Mechanics, National Geographic - all offer such horrible experiences that I've deleted them from my iPad. Only NYT and "The Economist" aren't totally crappy (Though neither of them download in that background on my iOS 6 iPad 3... Grrr - But I bet Marco's App supports background downloading.)
Second - The article on Volatiles and Stables was worth an entire years subscription by itself. Marco made it easy for us to copy/paste the text - didn't trap the content like all those crappy magazine systems normally do. I've been madly copying that article and forwarding it to everyone in the company, with a prominent link to "The Magazine".
I'm guessing that He'll get at least 10 direct new subscriptions through me alone. WHo knows how many indirect subscriptions...
This could be great. Most digital magazines are terrible; while this won't solve the biggest problem (the magazine itself is a superior technology for reading), it could go a long ways towards a better reading experience. NEW YORKER I'M LOOKING AT YOU.
Is there any chance the writing will be any good, compared to the long-standing, excellent journalism that already exists? I'll keep getting my quality journalism from New Yorker, The Nation, The Guardian, etc.
> a modern iOS Newsstand publication for geeks like us that’s loosely about technology, but also gives tech writers a venue to explore other topics that like-minded geeks might find interesting.
Maybe there's a market for magazine type media. It seems so backwards and nostalgic. Print imposed restrictions on size, format, timelyness, access, single voice (no comments), among others. The description of "The Magazine" sounds like what HN or Reddit already is.
Also something so pretentious to call itself "The Magazine" is gonna be filled with poseur hacks. Wired already fills that role.
Print restrictions? Let's talk about side-by-side articles, bundling commentary essays with the main feature, boxed info and the whole shebang of stuff that just doesn't seem to work on the internet (and I sorta doubt it will work on tablets, but I'll give it a try). It's stuff that's basically possible thanks to two things: the magazine and broadsheet formats, and extensive editing.
Just because Internet is modern doesn't mean it doesn't come with restrictions of it's own. Even automated syndication things like Flipboard managed to emulate the look of a magazine, but not the feature that is editing and selection of content by someone competent, but who you only sort-of agree with.
I believe that content should be written for a platform. Which is why putting magazines on newsstand by putting images in an application hasn't sold well. This content targets the iOS using audience and is written for the format.
The tools iOS provide will at least allow them to test if selling an iOS only publication works.
It looks like boilerplate or c/p'd text. Note that "touch" is not capitalized either. This is too sloppy for Marco - or a serious indictment of the editorial standard we can expect.
Interesting. The first search result on my search was capitalized, but now it isn't. Maybe I searched on DDG instead of Google and got a weird result.
I wonder whether they'll follow a style manual, though. I find it weird that "The Magazine" isn't italicized, but maybe they're following one that prefers magazine titles non-italicized.
EDIT: I think it was indeed DDG, which uses Wikipedia's weird autocapitalized titles. Or autotitle()'d, if you're a Python guy. I was too focused on the capitalization of the "t" that I didn't notice the erroneously capitalized "IPod".
It's fairly common. For instance, the NY Times style is to use "iPod Touch", "iPod Nano", and "Mac Mini" despite Apple's desires. The justification is that a proper noun in all lowercase can lead to unclear or ambiguous sentences.
Then they do so incorrectly, as Apple's list of registered trademarks clearly specifies the lowercase second word for these devices. [0]
So when the NY Times writes iPod Touch® [1] as they do on their mobile apps page they're not using the registered trademark as intended. It would be as incorrect as writing 'Blackberry' or 'MicroSoft'.
Apple is pretty touchy about this, with Section 4 of their 'Rules for Proper Use of Apple Trademarks' saying:
4. Always spell and capitalize Apple’s trademarks exactly as they are shown in the Apple Trademark List. Do not shorten or abbreviate Apple product names. Do not make up names that contain Apple trademarks. [2]
Obviously the enforcement of all that legalese is questionable and Apple has yet to burn down the doors of the NY Times, but I think it's fair to say that for the rest of us it would be correct to accept that not all company and product names follow grammatical rules and that when writing about them we should spell and capitalise them as the company intended rather than as we'd prefer.
I commonly see the misspelling "MicroSoft". Does anyone know if it was ever spelled that way? Originally it was "Micro-Soft", but did they ever use the intercaps form?
People commonly misspell "Xcode" and "Xbox", but I really hate it when they write "MAC" to refer Apple's Macintosh. It's not an acronym!
Funny thing is that it doesn't seem like the actual registered trademark includes capitalization choice. They are all shown as all-caps in the PTOs database, for instance: Word Mark ITUNES MATCH
I believe the trademark is registered regardless of capitalisation, otherwise we'd have ridiculous situations like GoOgLe being non-infringing. So 'iTunes Match' is protected whether it's spelled 'ITUNES MATCH', 'iTUNES match' or whatever other combination you want.
That is however a separate issue to a company's preferred usage of its mark, where it has the prerogative to specify a preferred capitalisation. Again, the examples of 'Blackberry' and 'MicroSoft' being incorrect are relevant here.
As an aside, I love that we got into a debate on this. In what other community would such needless minutiae take up anyone's time? :)
Apple also tries to promote the use of dropping the "the" and just referring to iPod, iPad, iPhone, etc. Should we also do this too, in deference to Apple?
The content is basically long-form hacker news, only made worse because now it's 'curated' with whatever lofty theoretical mission 'The Magazine' espouses. Nice looking app but those four articles bored me to the point of canceling my 7 day trial.
That just launched the in-app purchase alert for me. Then when I paid I swiped right to access the menu. It could be that you have in-app purchase disabled on your device.
if its for IOS only then I cant access it. Also, I question the "geeks like us" part. Why not just publish it as a downloadable PDF or EPUB or something along those lines ?
If you question it, then you aren't who he is talking to.
For the record, it's not like he's claiming ownership of the word geek and assigning it a strict definition that involves owning an iOS device. He's saying it's designed for geeks like "us". A cross section of both "like Marco", and a geek.
Not exactly something to question.
> Why not just publish it as a downloadable PDF or EPUB or something along those lines ?
Because charging for it becomes much harder, it requires users to do more work, and it bypasses the hundreds of millions of iTunes accounts with credit cards already attached, something that has already been demonstrated to shoot up subscription rates.
>Introducing The Magazine: a modern iOS Newsstand publication for geeks like us that’s loosely about technology, but also gives tech writers a venue to explore other topics that like-minded geeks might find interesting.
So, also boring stuff about brewing coffee and typefaces?
But on the other hand...I'm really wondering why this needs to be an iOS app. Written content is perfect for publishing on the web, I really don't think you'll be running into any speed issues when you release this as a web magazine. And even if you would, why not make the content available both native and on the web?
I'm aware that Marco is an iOS developer, and that a lot of his readers (myself included) will have iOS devices, but for the sake of the open web I'm still slightly disappointed.