Towards the end of May publishing giant Conde Nast will be bringing paid subscription magazines to the Apple iPad Tablet. These new magazines will include Wired, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. If you are a current subscriber of these magazines in their print form, you get the digital subscription for free!
The New Yorker for new subscribers will cost $5.99 per month or $59.99 a year. While Wired and Vanity Fair is slatted to cost $1.99 per issue or $19.99 a year.
Now lets talk turkey; you may notice the New Yorker costs more money than the other publications for their digital alter egos. This is because the New Yorker has way less advertisements than Wired and Vanity Fair. One of the draw backs of the digital versions of Wired is that it is plagued by advertisements from beginning to end, it seems every few pages there is an advert.
Wired up until now had its own independent iPad application but it did not fall in line with Apple’s new policy of the company handling the digital subscription costs and not the publisher. The discounted price is alluring, but every 2nd or 3rd page be prepared for a full page ad.
With digital subscription costs rising, due to factoring in Apples 30% cut on all subscriptions and the rising amount of advertisements per magazine. Do you see digital subscriptions to magazines on the iPad has been consumer friendly, or a drawback?
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
