WIRED Magazine 17+

Hey scrutarius... If you press the home and the lock button at the same time (at any time but even when reading wired) it takes a screen grab of whatever you're doing and puts it in your photos, where you can then email it or print (soon) or whatever. Problem solved...

As for the content layout, I like it, and enough thought has gone into it so as to not require pinch to zoom in my opinion, with the font size being big enough. I think the other reviewers reasons against are in fact it's biggest positives, and I flick pages off via email to friends who I think may like it every now and then, when I would never bother whipping out my PHOTOCOPIER!? to do the same thing. The good news is that email is free and doesn't cost extra for colour. Not sure if Conde Nast would have a problem with it or if they're happy I'm promoting their product... I'm sure it's in writing somewhere...

I like the magazine, and am giving it 5 stars to try and even out this other un-informed review of what is a pretty good mag, and the best format to date so far, besides the file sizes.

I wanted something to read. Instead I got some sort of game. I installed and subscribed to this on the basis of the excellent experience offered by the New Yorker iPad app from the same publisher. That works perfectly with none of the annoyances of this app. To start with, every time I launch the app, I have to type in my iTunes password. When it detects a new issue is available, it tries to sell it to me, even though I'm subscribed for a year. Those may be bugs, but once you get past them, the actual designed behaviour is not actually a reading experience that I enjoy. I learned to read without moving my lips and pointing out each word with a finger quite some time ago. Aside from turning a page, reading for 40 years has been a one-handed activity. However this app does every trick it can to hide the text of articles. The screen is typically taken up with a graphic. A hint (or not) is given to where the text might be hiding. You have to press here, scroll there, to reveal it in tiny portions. I should be given points for each paragraph I find, so a ranking in Game Center could tell me if I've really done reading. When reading becomes a two-handed activity, it is no longer comfortable to do sitting in an easy chair or lying down. It's a chore to be done at a workstation. Not what a magazine ever was or would want to be. Surprising that Wired should be the one to so comprehensively misapply the technology.

I've downloaded most if not all of the initial attempts to transplant the magazine media to the ipad (Wired, Popular Science, GamesTM, How It Works, etc) and Wired is the only one in this crop that has nailed what magazine-related content should look and feel like in tablet form without prejudicing the classic hard copy form.

I have both versions of the current issue in ipad and paper form and I do not regret having paid twice for similar content as the "reason for being" for each form is fundamentally different from the other. The paper Wired is a celebration of lay-out, the 2-page spread, and vibrant print -- it is still one of the best magazines currently being produced. The iPad Wired is a glimpse into the future of how stories, reviews, and advertising flow between screens and embedded media forms contained in a coherent digital pack.

Compared to the Popular Science attempt (which rates a 3/5 at best), Wired seems to have invested more design time / testing to how intuitive it would be to the iPad reader. Compared to Pop Sci, moving from page to page in Wired is easy and the interactivity elements enhance the reading experience rather than call attention to itself.

Most importantly, Wired for iPad pays its respects to both the new iPad user and the iPad itself for thinking through the new medium and trying things out instead of just pdf-ing the past year of issues (I'm talking to you Pixelmag).