Mag+ concept for re-inventing magazines in the digital age

BERG (a London based Design Consultancy) has been working with Bonnier RD (RD arm of the Swedish media group of the same name that owns many magazine titles) to envision the future of magazines, digital magazines.


You can see BERG's own explanation of the work at this page http://berglondon.com/blog/2009/12/17/magplus/  or Bonnier's page on Mag+ or view the larger video on Vimeo.


Pages or Scrolls
Two thousand years later, the debate is still raging....pages or scrolls? :-)


Some of the interesting things about their vision of a future magazine is the way that articles scroll, not flip pages. This is bucking the current trend of things going page-based (even Personal Productivity PC applications in Microsoft's Courier concept which I've posted on recently).


In some classic design-speak they think the on-screen page turning metaphor is "not honest".


It's interesting to hear the examples he uses of scrolling reading applications, where he names an iPhone app (InstaPaper - app page that includes a demo video). 


The iPhone itself has avoided scrolling (and the horrible graphics and usability of the often associated scroll-bars with small touch screen devices), and even your home screen(s) of icons are presented in pages you flip-through, and some Apple apps have a "flip side" of the page for settings and additional info.


Yet, other iPhone apps - such as contacts - have gone for the "long list" that is scrolled through, using on-screen gestures (not scroll bars) and the famed physics of the lists behavior).


But it does allow them to lay the articles out in a horizontal array of vertically scrolled articles, and that seems to work quite well.


Perfect Interaction
The thing about these design vision videos is that things always seem to happen instantaneously, with incredible response times and perfect human-machine interaction.  Off-course, this is how it should be!


The problem is that the iPhone is the only device I have seen to date that get's anywhere close to reproducing this sensation.


It will require an excellent implementation to achieve that they show, but maybe Apple are up to the challenge.

It seems they have given the non-trivial task of taking this to the next stage to one Kicker Studio in San Francisco.

"Kicker Studio is working with Bonnier to expand this concept into a robust, interactive prototype over the next several months."  (Kicker Studio's page here)

Let's watch out for that "robust, interactive prototype" eh?!


I'm glad to see some reflective, low-power, display technologies coming along (PixelQi, Mirasol, LiquaVista) that might help us get there and have a decent battery life and a more paper-like visual appearance.


The video and images also shows what a perfect display would look like, very bright (but not too much so!) indoors, even in a dark room, and very bright and readable outdoors. No sign of glare or reflections etc.


Enjoy
These videos and works are very fun, so enjoy it, and keep praying for reality to be able to implement them as envisioned some day.

The new technology devil - eBooks!

See the "dissertation" on TeleRead blog here on how we are again demonizing a new book technology, just like 500 years ago.

History replays itself!

Originally books were handwritten (copied) by specialized scribes, often with extreme artistry.

Then one day a new technology was "invented" - the movable type printer, which promised cheap, mass production of books that (shock! horror!) would ALL LOOK THE SAME, and were ugly. They put the scribes jobs at risk and the end of an art form loomed.

This new technology was the devil incarnate, and "real books" were under threat.

Fast forward 500 years and the same type of argument is happening with eBooks. They are "just not the same" as real paper books, and surely will never take off, much less take over?

The details of this specific argument aside, we just never seem to learn do we?

New technologies that intersect with art and culture and that break long tradition come under attack.

There is a lot of talk about the limitations of the new technology and we separate into two polarized bands, those for and those against. Those who stay on the fence are the worst, they won't even take a "position"!

Surely, if it were all limitations then it would no doubt fail on it's own - lack of- merit no, and no attack would be necessary?

In these cases we seem to fear the new technology. But surely if we look back, taking the growth of the printing press as our example in this case, the new technology has contributed hugely to society and culture.

eBook reading on your Apple iPhone or iPod Touch?

Original Post from September 29th 2007.

Do you wish for an eBook reading app for your iPhone?
This reader does and spent the time to create the mock-ups, which he posted here on MacRumors.com as part of his wishlist of applications for his iPhone.

See these nice mock-ups of the UI on the iPhone.

Somehow I suspect that Apple would work on his #2 wishlist entry "iTunes Store for iPhone" before getting to eBooks (I've never understood why Apple haven't done this, and remove the PC/Mac centricity from the whole music purchase thing and make your account on iTunes the center of things...)

But who knows, I could be surprised.
Many commenters on his post hate his other ideas, but no comments on the eBook idea at this time.
I'd take bets that before too long we'll see a newsreading app on the iPhone, and after that maybe for other textual material like books - but in that order.

Well, since I wrote that (and forgot to post it) we've seen the introduction of the iTunes Wi-Fi Music store for iPod Touch and iPhone which now allows you to purchase digital music directly from those devices when connected via Wi-Fi (including picking up your Latte at Starbucks). They've kept it PC/Mac centric though with that music being "synched-back" to your PC/Mac when later connected.

The use of Wi-Fi, not EDGE or another data connection, avoids Apple having to have an agreement on the content purchase with the Telcos. Presumably it was easier to get a good deal with Starbucks than with ATT Wireless for music download?

So, if there are people out there who read books on their mobile phones (I'm always amazed by that, but there's plenty of blog entries and comments from people who do...) then presumably the iPhone/iPod Touch with the bigger and brighter screen will make a better reading device for those users?

That would be especially true for news reading, and not a long novel, and so I stand by my comments above that someone will work with Apple to provide a news reader on the iPhone. Google with Google News? Reuters or another agency?

I suspect that Jobs is making overtures to the New York Times with iPhone often having images of the NYT on it in photos, adverts, etc. Just like he often plays Beatles songs in his keynote speeches, while in negotiations to sell the Beatles music catalog on iTunes.

So I'll predict that the NYT will be the first newspaper we see on the iPhone. :-)

One eBook Per Child (OEBPC)?

Original Post from September 20th 2007.

Here are a couple of links to blog entries proposing a $50 eBook for education - a la OLPC.

Original Posting (May 2007)

New Update (July 2007)

The OLPC screen is intriguing in offering color (for certain lighting conditions) and great mono for bright sunlight conditions in one device, and when combined with the low-power of the OLPC it is not such a stretch to imagine it as a color & mono eBook basis...

I suspect I'll follow-up on this and the OLPC in future posts.