Things must be going really well for Condé Nast these days, as they’re continuing to bring their magazines to the iPad, one after another. Joining the ranks this time, alongside Wired, GQ, and Vanity Fair, is the New Yorker. The weekly is selling for $4.99 per issue on the iPad, which works out to be $259.48 per year, if all the issues are priced similarly. This is pretty steep when it comes to a magazine subscription, considering you can subscribe to the print copy for three years at the low, affordable price of $99.95.
If there was ever a case for a subscription-based magazine model on the iPad, this might be it. While we don’t know the ins and outs of the negotiating that’s been going on between Apple and the publishers over the subscription model, we’re hoping something gets worked out pretty quickly. If digital publishing is really going to save the industry, these unlikely partners need to get consumers realistic prices for subscriptions. A $4.99 magazine isn’t all that pricey if you’re the type of reader who wants to pick up an edition here or there, but if you read any of these magazines religiously, it’s going to be hard to justify the premium price for the luxurious iPad edition.
The New Yorker iPad magazine works like the rest of the Condé Nast publications. You download the reader for free, and then download the magazines one by one in application, after paying for each edition separately. The UI and navigation framework are the same as the Wired magazine: swipe up and down within an article, left to right to switch between articles, and tap to bring up a scrubber.
You can watch Jason Schwartzman give an app demonstration in the video below. It’s pretty funny, and by far, my favourite part is when he pulls the iPad out from underneath a pillow. We’ve all be there, haven’t we?
