When was the last time you bought a magazine? For me, it was probably a few years ago, back when I could afford to drop $5 to read what was most likely one single article that I could find in some form on the Internet for free. I haven’t had a subscription to a magazine since I was in high school (when my mom paid for my subscription to Seventeen), and while I used to spend a lot of time at least glancing at the magazine racks in bookstores, I don’t even head over that way anymore. Aside from not wanting to pay for something I can get online for free, magazines—while shiny and beautiful with pictures waiting to be cut out and taped to my bedroom wall—take up space that I just don’t have in my tiny one-bedroom apartment. And when I was in college, there was talk in all of my publishing classes about magazines going the way of other things that no longer exist: dinosaurs, VCRs, print dictionaries.
Then came the iPad, with its sleek design and relatively large screen. Magazines began creating apps which allowed readers to access content directly on their device, which—unlike the iPhone or BlackBerry—was the perfect size for viewing graphics and written content. And while yes, a lot of that content is available on the Internet, it isn’t easy for taking on-the-go. Magazines are great for travel, for waiting in doctors’ offices, and for beach reading; laptops are not.
Recently, The New Yorker revealed that it has over 100,000 readers on iPad, making it the highest selling magazine app from Condé Nast, which publishes iPad versions of magazines like Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, and Glamour. By the end of 2011, Time Inc. will have all twenty-one of its magazines—which include Sports Illustrated, People, and Entertainment Weekly—on the iPad. Time Inc. also will begin selling subscriptions on the Barnes & Noble Nook Color.
Like e-books, e-magazines are fast, easy to transport, and don’t take up extra room on our bags or homes. While I’m glad the magazine industry seems to have found a new way to keep up with the technology of today’s world and to stay out of the same category as the dinosaurs, I do wonder what will happen to pin-up posters of the latest celebrity and how teenage girls everywhere will decorate their bedroom walls.