Adobe, Condé Nast scrambled to get Wired app on Apple's iPad

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  • Reply 81 of 122
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    Great big images? Surely if they're going to take such a brute force approach, great big PDFs would be almost as easy but save a lot of data.



    How?

    A pdf is simply a container for that great big image.
  • Reply 82 of 122
    spinthis!spinthis! Posts: 16member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RationalTroll View Post


    Books are more portable (who really reads 100 books at a time?), have a more intuitive interface, never need recharging, and you can't crack the screen by simply putting it into a shoulder bag with any hard objects in it.



    And you can get tons of titles at your local library... for free. Or if you buy one, you can share it with your friends without having to load them your iPad. And if you lose one, you're not out $500.



    Publishers are still feeling out the market. Ultimately consumers decide where their money goes and so far the Wired app isn't a total failure, regardless of what HTML5/tech geeks who have couldn't care less about graphic design have to say.



    And for God's sake, people slamming Adobe... get over yourselves. For Apple to "win" doesn't mean Adobe, Google, Microsoft, HTC... Audi... BMW, etc. has to lose. But I guess that doesn't get you hits on a website if you don't raise a little hell.
  • Reply 83 of 122
    djsherlydjsherly Posts: 1,031member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DerekCurrie View Post


    If only Condé Nast were TechLiterate.



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF



    As described in detail at Wikipedia.ort, here is a short list of what the PDF format supports:



    Text

    Fonts

    Text encoding

    Raster images

    Vector images

    Video

    Audio

    Transparency

    AcroForms

    XFA Forms

    Encryption

    Digital signing

    User Rights signatures

    Embedded files

    Metadata

    Mars XML/XMP

    SVG

    3D artwork

    Accessibility features

    Interactive GUI elements

    Color management

    JavaScript (ECMAScript)

    Annotations

    XFA

    . . .



    No Flash Required.



    All of these features are available in the Adobe format of eBooks as well. Adobe InDesign can create both formats.



    Oops Condé Nast. Try again.



    Adobe: SHAME ON YOU. 500 MB iPad app. HAHAHAHAHA! Dolts.



    And hands up if you know how much of the above is supported by the pdf implementation on iPhone? I suspect not enough to provide the experience the Wired app was trying to offer.
  • Reply 84 of 122
    sue denimsue denim Posts: 49member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    .Regarding the tradeoff of the Wired app displaying a picture of text rather than the text itself. I was curious about the cost in memory of displaying a picture instead of just the text. So, I created a Photoshop png image of some text.

    If I display the following as text it takes 4 Bytes (5 if you include trailing space).

    Hell

    The following picture of the same word is:



    It takes 49KB... 49KB or More than 10,000* times the amount of space!



    Looks as if someone(s) needs to rethink their goals and development process!



    You demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the problems.



    1) You're probably comparing the block side of your drive and not the image.

    2) There's something called image compression which changes the image size.

    3) The text example isn't including all the data necessary to encode the font itself: which in fact on a small sample is MORE than the image would be. And gets worse the more you vary font and size across a document.

    4) When you display an encoded font one, you need to decode that, and take memory (buffers). So yes, it might not take it on disk, but if you want any sort of performance, you need to still take the image space in memory anyways.

    5) You forgot to calculate amount of MIPS or time to encode/decode.



    Look, this all boils down to this.



    To represent a magazine or any paper, you can encode all the things on the paper (vector description), or a compressed digitized pixels version of it (raster description). The size may not change as much as you think it does -- especially on hybrid things that have both -- but the latter takes MUCH more compute power.



    Yes, if you have a cursory understanding, you can think that "hey the text stream looks like a few byte's it's smaller". But if you know what you're talking about, and look at all the issues involved, the world isn't as simple a place as you think it is.



    So great. You don't like that Adobe gave the magazines a more accurate representation than Apple's iBooks, which is also based on an Adobe technology, and which runs on a display engine in Mac OS (PDF based) which is also based on an Adobe technology. Fine. Good for you. But your problem is with the publishers not Adobe. They want something that looks good (like what it does on paper), and you don't think that's necessary. We'll find out who knows more about their industry, you or them. I'm kinda betting on them.
  • Reply 85 of 122
    lowededwookielowededwookie Posts: 1,143member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kerryb View Post


    Please someone if not Apple



    I keep telling people Flux 2. :P



    It still has a way to go but it's further along in terms of XHTML and HTML5 support than other web development tools.



    It does take a bit of getting used to in some cases though but the more people starting to use it and the more comments the developer gets the better the app will become.
  • Reply 86 of 122
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sue Denim View Post


    ... So great. You don't like that Adobe gave the magazines a more accurate representation than Apple's iBooks ...



    More accurate than what? Get over your typography fetish, most readers simply don't care, and would rather be able to change the font size or copy text than know that they are looking at the exact font chosen for them, picked from thousands, but still unreadable. This adds no value to a digital magazine. What would add value are features such as those seen in SI or Time and not available in this massive picture book called Wired. Plus, the abomination known as Adobe Digital Viewer eliminates all the accessibility features built into the OS: http://daringfawnyball.wordpress.com...6/02/wiredapp/ (via Gruber).



    Yeah, this is a great example of Adobe technology at work and why Adobe sucks so much as a company that they really need to die so they stop holding back publishing on new mediums, keeping everyone stuck on old paradigms that have outlived their usefulness.
  • Reply 87 of 122
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sue Denim View Post




    Yes, if you have a cursory understanding, you can think that "hey the

    So great. You don't like that Adobe gave the magazines a more accurate representation than Apple's iBooks, which is also based on an Adobe technology, and which runs on a display engine in Mac OS (PDF based) which is also based on an Adobe technology. Fine. Good for you. But your problem is with the publishers not Adobe. They want something that looks good (like what it does on paper), and you don't think that's necessary. We'll find out who knows more about their industry, you or them. I'm kinda betting on them.



    And, we'll see who knows more about what the consumer will buy... I'm betting it's not the publishers.



    .
  • Reply 88 of 122
    jfanningjfanning Posts: 3,398member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    .If I display the following as text it takes 4 Bytes (5 if you include trailing space).



    Hell



    Well for starters, if you are displaying that text with HTML it takes a lot more than 4 bytes to send it, you have to include all the formatting tags etc that are sent with it
  • Reply 89 of 122
    tofinotofino Posts: 697member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by djsherly View Post


    And hands up if you know how much of the above is supported by the pdf implementation on iPhone? I suspect not enough to provide the experience the Wired app was trying to offer.



    'trying' being the key word there.
  • Reply 90 of 122
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jfanning View Post


    Well for starters, if you are displaying that text with HTML it takes a lot more than 4 bytes to send it, you have to include all the formatting tags etc that are sent with it



    In its simplest, most costly* (of memory) form, the marked-up text would look something like this:



    <p style="font-family:verdana; font-size: 18pt">When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.</p>



    * Usually you set up style sheets, defining all the standard styles for an entire document, and refer to them by a shorthand embedded within the text (much shorter, more powerful tags).





    Go to:



    http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_font-family[/URL



    and paste the above in and try it.





    Play around, it might open your eyes a bit!



    The inefficient method adds the tags:



    <p style="font-family:verdana; font-size: 18pt">



    and



    </p>





    to bookend a paragraph of text.



    That's a lot less than the 10,000 times overhead a picture of text takes.





    BTW, notice how nicely the text reflows when you enlarge the window!



    .
  • Reply 91 of 122
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    I see where have the resident trolls have been trolling this day. I wonder which of the previously banned posters this Sue Denim is. My money is on iGenius.



    Nice job on the "HELL" post Dick Applebaum, but don't forget that you have to double everything for the second layout option on a tablet. This really is the most laughable thing I've seen from a publisher.
  • Reply 92 of 122
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I see where have the resident trolls have been trolling this day. I wonder which of the previously banned posters this Sue Denim is. My money is on iGenius.



    Nice job on the "HELL" post Dick Applebaum, but don't forget that you have to double everything for the second layout option on a tablet. This really is the most laughable thing I've seen from a publisher.



    Yeah, Thank God the iPad is not a septagon



    .
  • Reply 93 of 122
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post


    How?

    A pdf is simply a container for that great big image.



    PDF is a vector format not bitmap. Text inside it is ascii not pixels. They should be able to use the Print function of whatever app originally created the pages to get PDFs.
  • Reply 94 of 122
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sue Denim View Post


    Wow, I never realized how clueless and baised Daniel Eran Dilger was, until reading this article.



    So please explain how you would deliver pixel perfect representations of a magazine without using images? Magazines brands are based on many extremely subtle parts of design: the exact font, spacing and weighting of the line-layout. The huge photographs spread throughout the page, and so on.



    Let's pretend that it would be smaller to embed the many fonts that are in each magazine, with the magazine. (Ignore that HTML5 doesn't have that capability). Figure 20-40 fonts per magazine, and you have to deal with dozens of publishers and try to get highly expensive licenses for inclusion?



    How much space do you think that takes. And probably 50% of every page is ads or photos, or something interactive, that would have to be images anyways.



    And can you imagine trying to re-render each page on a baby ARM processor? I'm sure you think 30 seconds to render each page would be an improvement in interactivity, but not sure the customers would think so.



    Seems like anyone with an engineering background or IQ in the triple digits would quickly realize that your choices are (a) image driven representation like Zinio, Adobe and the other magazines use (b) layout driven interface like PDF, with many embedded fonts. You can get some space savings for the latter, with huge performance and interaction penalties. (And 20 times the development and production time, which means magazines and Adobe would have to charge more to break-even, and it would mean less content).



    So sounds like for now, they made the better choice. I get my content sooner, cheaper and with better interactivity. Maybe that's why the other magazine engines work that way as well?



    Urm... 500MB is a ridiculously massive size for something delivered to a mobile device. Secondly, any digital delivery that makes sense has to do pixel-perfect rendering of text and images without having to pre-rasterize text. Yes, maybe the PDF approach is not right because it takes time to render.



    Just big blocks of images straight out of InDesign is lazy, desperate and clueless. Forgivable, IMHO, because time is money.



    But moving forward a HTML-esque or intelligently coded platform is what is needed if digital magazines are to be viable. I'm looking at the prices even on Zinio and I think prices have to change as well.



    The whole idea eg. with HTML is so that content is separated from layout, and the viewer program renders everything as quickly as possible.
  • Reply 95 of 122
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Maybe I'm old skool but I don't give a flying f**k about interactivity in a digital magazine. If I wanted loads of interactivity I'd go to the website or view crazy Flash sites on my PC/Mac.



    I just want the goshdarned PRINT version of the magazine JUST RIGHT THERE in the iPad so, I can just read through it easily like reading the print version, no need for any gimmicks and "oh it's like a magazine but so much better!!11!1".



    I want in the morning to go down to the dining table, pick up my iPad, and just have a relaxing, SIMPLE read of publications AT MUCH LOWER COST than the print versions.



    Why are publishers not fully grasping this yet? Maybe some get it, some don't. Again, I've looked at the prices on Zinio, and it's just not good enough to get me to do anything except flick through the print publication at the local bookstore, where I wonder who buys those publications nowadays anyways - which is probably why they're getting desperate.
  • Reply 96 of 122
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Maybe I'm old skool but I don't give a flying f**k about interactivity in a digital magazine. If I wanted loads of interactivity I'd go to the website or view crazy Flash sites on my PC/Mac.



    I can see where you are coming from here, but when it comes to devices of different sizes and aspect ratios you have to expect some some of "intelligent design" even if it's not interactive to the user.



    This Wired app is completely wrong on every level. However, I put part of the blame on Apple for releasing this "break through" device that only uses EPUB for iBooks and not an open, multimedia format for the future of magazines, comic books, and text books.



    This is my biggest let down from the January event. While it has completely changed the tablet category and is a success, I think it could have been truly revolutionary if they created a viable open standard for all books from the get go.



    This Wired magazine is just one example of the horrors that will come before this happens. Even the Marvel app ? while great in its own right*? shouldn't be a app, but a purchase on iBookStore or Kindle, IMO.
  • Reply 97 of 122
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by walter dithers View Post


    It needs to be said louder:



    THERE IS NO FLASH APPLICATION (SOFTWARE) FOR THE IPHONE. THREE YEARS AND ADOBE DID ZERO.



    It also needs to be said that we can safely ignore posts from Sue Denim - such anger and contempt shows us clearly that she/he is not hearing or seeing anything but the righteous and silly outrage that characterizes those who have lost the plot.



    Print magazines aren't doing well.

    They are NOT interactive in any way, don't have sound files, cant be magnified except by physical means such as magnifying glasses.

    Print magazines are losing readership, in one sense, because they aren't IMMEDIATE. They are close to being finished.



    MAYBE the iPad can save these fools by making their content available immediately, but I doubt it.

    If you don't know that Flash doesn't work on mobile devices, then I guess you aren't clear on the next step.



    (Dilger, of course, is quite right in his assertions - they were SOLD a pup by Adobe and some fools in their IT dept.)





    More to the point, The iPad, the iPhone, the rest of us humans etc. don't need these archaic 'content' delivery 'experts' (Sue Denim is obviously one of them, yawn.)



    All we need is the web, and we need it to be accessible from touch screen devices, because thats where the actual customer, the READER (remember him/her?) is going, in increasingly large numbers.

    The verity of sources will, as usual, be suspect and the quality of writers, will, as always, be mixed.

    So? Thats how it is with published content of any kind.



    Newspapers and magazines lost the plot many years ago for a variety of reasons - in magazines case, they forgot who they were selling to and only pandered to advertisers.

    The selling price of the object did and does not represent the main income.

    Its possible that only advertisers read the most expensive and glossy magazines....



    Maybe these mags wont make it to the iPad. So be it. We wont be losing much.

    If you really want to allow high-handed content providers like Sue Denim to tell you how to see your world, then you are in danger of not seeing the big picture.



    Her/His 'go get 'em tiger' comment is contemptuous of all young people who want to start something new.

    That alone makes the Sue Denim diatribes irrelevant.



    Makes me laugh when I see any space given to such a pathetic last wag of the tail of a Dinosaur who is sinking into the swamp of change and is NOT aware of it.



    Goodbye Sue Denim - we are done with you now.



    Hello new young Web world, messy and unfinished and with a chance of showing something better, allowing the great unwashed and even the little washed to have their say, their moment - GO GET THEM, TIGER!!



    +1 emphatically!
  • Reply 98 of 122
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    I really think that everyone that has posted here, and especially Sue Denim, should take a look at the Time and SportsIllustrated YouTube videos (links above).



    THIS is what people envision digital magazines to be in the near term... NOT a JPG slide show... even with interactive parts. Time, Inc. is WAY ahead of you folks on the Condé Nasty Train!



    BTW: IMHO, and technically speaking... much of what Time, Inc. has done now as an App, we will see in Web 3.0 and websites for free, within any browser, incl. IE9 within the next couple of years.



    * Actually, the Time and SI issues could be released for free on their website right now, by implementing a targeted CSS style sheet and optimized sub-domain for the content. Naturally, all advertisers would have to submit "optimized" ads for it too, meaning no Flash.



    * For those on the go and without a 3g connection or option, I think Apple or someone should come up with a way to intelligently pre-load content into cache. I'm not a developer, but I can't see why this can't/couldn't be done(?) Sort of like a "Site-Sucker" if ya know what I mean. Anyone with more insight?



    Content, and free access to it, regardless of OS platform or device, will be king. Publishing co.'s better get used to this. I don't see the "long-term" value of a Magazine App, unless the publisher also starts to charge for their website, or takes it down. Far more interactivity, sociability and researchable content on the web for sure. And with Web 3.0 (HTML5) over the next few years, you will have the exact same experience as the dedicated Apps provide, if not more.



    So heads up to anyone tying their boat to the Adobe and "print publishing" software pier. Print is dying, and what Adobe is providing now is an ugly (500mb pretty?) facade, and truthfully will be the anchor around your neck(!)



    Get the web developers in, and the software houses that are doing Javascript and CMS publishing platforms for the web, and regurgitate THAT content out to print... for those that need it... if only to line the bird cage with.
  • Reply 99 of 122
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    I remember way back when (1994) when I told people that the Internet was going to be huge, and would overtake all publishing and information resources, including TV. People scoffed at me, and most had never even heard of the Internet.



    What we're experiencing now is the logical "next step" with mobile info devices. HTML is also not going to stop at 5, just as it didn't at 1, 2, 3 or 4 before it. Web 3.0 will give in to 4.0, etc, etc.



    So open your eyes people and daydream a little. This new "hard to get used to paradigm shift" is not the end, just as it was not the beginning. Technology will continue to march on... even if the corporate and "Über-Capatilistic" big-wigs don't get it and would rather die than move forward with it. Die they will... as sure as taxes.



    NOTE: for those that would put that "Ü-C" label on SJ, please be aware that he has also, and at the very beginning of the iPhone, championed web-apps. Yes... free-for-anyone-browser WebApps! That developers are screaming that they can't get into "his" store, is beyond me. A "Wicked Weasel" App doesn't need to exist. However an optimized "mobile version" of their store does... and can without Apple's or SJ's approval.



    Now about that Adobe Obituary: considering the missteps, the lack of vision, their preoccupation with all things Flash... and their inability to get it to function satisfactorily for mobile devices (in my terms, Web 3.0)... I give 'em 2 years tops. If I was a shareholder, I would move to replace the entire board and top management immediately.



    Morbid thought: why do i think that those at Adobe are instead, privately wishing for SJ to kick it sooner rather than later so that they don't have to make the "hard" decisions?



    Just my take and 2 cents (sense)
  • Reply 100 of 122
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I can see where you are coming from here, but when it comes to devices of different sizes and aspect ratios you have to expect some some of "intelligent design" even if it's not interactive to the user.



    This Wired app is completely wrong on every level. However, I put part of the blame on Apple for releasing this "break through" device that only uses EPUB for iBooks and not an open, multimedia format for the future of magazines, comic books, and text books.




    Part of the blame is Apple's... but magazines are a different, broader, content experience than books. In Apple's defense, I think Apple realized:



    1) Apple didn't have the time or resources to solve this problem

    2) That the solution really should come from the "experts"-- publishers of magazines, working with the technology rather than vice versa

    3) That, likely, several conflicting solutions would emerge

    4) The consumer would select the winner(s) with their eyes, time and dollars



    Quote:



    This is my biggest let down from the January event. While it has completely changed the tablet category and is a success, I think it could have been truly revolutionary if they created a viable open standard for all books from the get go.




    Yes, a single standard for books/readers would have been better. But it would have taken time (and negotiations) to subsume the book content of Kindle, Nook, et al. The eBook category is somewhere between items 3) and 4) (above) several solutions have emerged; and the consumer will choose the winners



    Quote:



    This Wired magazine is just one example of the horrors that will come before this happens. Even the Marvel app — while great in its own right*— shouldn't be a app, but a purchase on iBookStore or Kindle, IMO.




    The Wired magazine is at item 2) above... Except the publishers ignored the technology (or were mislead by so-called technologists with a vested interest). The result, as you say, is horrible.



    OTOH, the Marvel offering is a good solution (between item 3) and 4), above). I could see this, or something similar, emerging as the Comic Book Producer/Distributor/Reader/Player of choice.



    [QUOTE]

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc View Post


    I really think that everyone that has posted here, and especially Sue Denim, should take a look at the Time and SportsIllustrated YouTube videos (links above).




    Snipped a lot of good ideas here, because I want to focus on a single idea (will address the snipped material in a separate post)



    Quote:

    Content, and free access to it, regardless of OS platform or device, will be king. Publishing co.'s better get used to this. I don't see the "long-term" value of a Magazine App, unless the publisher also starts to charge for their website, or takes it down. Far more interactivity, sociability and researchable content on the web for sure. And with Web 3.0 (HTML5) over the next few years, you will have the exact same experience as the dedicated Apps provide, if not more.



    So heads up to anyone tying their boat to the Adobe and "print publishing" software pier. Print is dying, and what Adobe is providing now is an ugly (500mb pretty?) facade, and truthfully will be the anchor around your neck(!)



    Get the web developers in, and the software houses that are doing Javascript and CMS publishing platforms for the web, and regurgitate THAT content out to print... for those that need it... if only to line the bird cage with.



    The point I want to focus on (and one of the points Sol was making) is CMS. Yes, we (publishers and consumers, alike) are looking for a CMS app for Print. Several CMS apps, actually: eBooks; Magazines; Comics. Then, there will be the Textbook CMS-- a special animal that supports: content updates (not issue replacement); massive cross-reference (linking); note taking and annotation; concurrent reading of multiple open textbooks... to name a few.





    Finally, I suspect that I am a lot older than most who posted to this thread.



    I remember the "experience" of magazines such as: Look; Life and others. I remember the feel (and sound) as you turned the pages... the way the pages felt as you slid you fingers between slippery pictures and mildly-abrasive type. Some pages were printed on [expensive] glossy paper; others on rougher paper; Then, there was the smell... yes, the smell-- the mildly acid/vinegery smell of paper and ink (when new) and later the comfortable (somewhat musty) smell of an old friend. I remember when they started printing in color. OMG Color-- Color in a Magazine-- first the ads, then the text, and finally color pictures in the content. Many were "works of art" in their own right, But, then,Content was king!



    Sigh... Time marches on [sic]. Those days and format are gone or dying.



    I believe that Print in general and books, magazines and comics, in particular will survive... albeit, in a different format targeting a different audience!



    Navigation, interaction, and social aspects will be key... but they need to be intuitive, natural. They should not be confusing or confrontational... they need to get out of the way and let the user immerse himself in the experience... And, yes, today, Content is [still] king!



    .
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