On Creating a great iPad Reading Experience
From an article from the New York Times:
The New Yorker, a magazine that has always been heavy on text, took a different tack from its peers. Instead of loading its iPad app with interactive features, the magazine focused on presenting its articles in a clean, readable format.
“That was really important to us: to create an app all about reading,” said Pamela Maffei McCarthy, the magazine’s deputy editor. “There are some bells and whistles, but we’re very careful about that. We think about whether or not they add any value. And if they don’t, out the window they go.”
- Kat Tancock
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It personally boils my skin to see things like digital editions with type that's blurry. I haven’t seen The New Yorker iPad app, but think it’s smart to be so conscious of the reader experience. I personally can’t stand anything that degrades the legibility of type, but I’m also a type freak.
An interesting thing to note is that there are a lot of different types on consumers out there. In comparison to music, people would illegally download crappy music files and put up with songs that were incomplete or had an annoying DJ shouting things in the background (or we’d listen to music through crappy speakers and not know the difference [eg. me]). People would watch bootlegged movies that were blurry or had people coughing or standing up in the movie. (And people would PAY for these crappy bootlegs!) People continue to put up with streaming movies online, and sit through the choppy staggered video.
There are those who don’t mind trading convenience (ie. don’t have to go to the store or can get it for free) for degraded quality. And there are those who are willing to pay for the best quality. I think it’s up to the producers of the publications to ensure that there exist such a “best quality.”