Publishing giant Condé Nast has announced its first wave of magazines being redesigned for release on Apple’s new iPad. GQ, their leading men’s magazine is the first to get the paper-to-pixel makeover, with the inaugural issue expected in April. Vanity Fair and Wired are expected in June; with Glamour and The New Yorker following later.
Condé Nast’s editorial director, Thomas Wallace said the titles were chosen because of their broad representation. “GQ is men. Glamour is women. Vanity Fair is a dual audience. The New Yorker is unique with its periodicity, and therefore it’s also more news- or text-heavy, and it’s a slightly older audience,” says Wallace.
The initial releases are critical in that the debut magazines are meant to test prices, designs and advertising formats in an experiment running through to the fall. A key problem, a result of iTunes-based distribution, is a lack of trackable reader demographics which will make marketing harder. Condé says it intends to compensate by forcing readers to register for some content access.
Whether or not other magazines will be ported to the iPad is dependent on the success of the experiment. “If we are happy with the results that we get, we’ll be ready to go in the fall,” adds Wallace.
The publications are being redesigned to take full advantage of the iPad’s capabilities. The publisher already offers a GQ iPhone app.