Next Issue is a new iPad app that aims to be the tablet equivalent of hanging around the magazine racks at a newsstand or the airport gift shop. It’s a joint venture from Conde Nast, Hearst Corp, News Corp, Time Inc., and Meredith Corp. that serves up content from 34 magazines including Wired, Parents, Car & Driver, and Bon Appetit for a flat ten bucks a month. If you want the New Yorker or Time, that will run you an extra five bucks.
The app, however, isn’t a standalone entity. In its current form, you have to go to the website to get an account. (So far, I haven’t found a way to do it within or through the app.)
Although Next Issue promotes a 30-day free trial, you have to give something to get it: your credit card information. They say you won’t be charged if you remember to cancel within 30 days, so mark it on your calendar app if you want to check it out.
The world always seems to be working on new ways to serve up magazines for iPads. Sometimes it’s based in an Apple book store, other times it’s an app, occasionally a browser-based model. The portrait style orientation of a tablet just seems to make people dead set sure that a magazine is perfect for the device. Maybe it is. Hell, I’m no William Shawn. Weird that none have caught on all that well though.