No applet required
Yes, it's in German. And yes, the scrolling isn't nearly as smooth in real life as it is on the demo video - but that doesn't mean that Aside magazine isn't a big deal.
Well, it's not really Aside - "world's first magazine only made with HTML5" - that's the big deal (our German isn't great, but the preview edition looks to be a Shortlist style mishmash of pop culture), it's the fact that it is a fully interactive magazine designed for the iPad, which doesn't require the App Store and doesn't, therefore, have to toe the strict Apple guidelines.
It installs simply by adding a link to your homescreen, and then you simply navigate in the same way as you're probably already familiar with, with App Store supplied digital mags. Although the scrolling isn't nearly as responsive as each page is loading as you scroll to it, rather than having it all stored on your iPad's internal storage.
Now, we're not being anti-Apple here, we love the Cupertino collective and its App Store. But in our world, magazines are press content, not software. And we don't want a big company to decide whether our content is allowed to be published or not. Also, it makes it much easier to publish on other platforms such as an Android tablet or smartphone or the BlackBerry PlayBook.
The future of publishing then? We think so, and with an non-App Store Playboy 'app' also confirmed for launch next week, Apple might want to think about re-working its magazine app guidelines.
Tags: HTML5 Aside Tablets Magazines
Aside HTML5 magazine: The future of publishing? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 13 May 2011 09:59:00 +0100