What’s The Point Of A Magic Wand If You Use It As Firewood? by Angus Bohanon

When Apple first released the iPad, they called it a “magical and revolutionary device”. Some scoffed, some marveled, and some were indifferent, but holy Steve Jobs did they sell. America’s favorite tech company shifted three million in three months, and apps for it started springing up even before the first one rolled off the assembly line. It has a touchscreen, a staggeringly fast processor, and enormous potential to revolutionize the way that people browse.

But it can only do that if allowed to. Now don’t get me wrong, some developers have taken advantage of the iPad’s interface in marvelous ways, but the ones who have gotten the most out of the iPad (e.g. Google, E.A.) are the kind of people who didn’t need help to begin with. The area in which the iPad’s talents are being wasted most egregiously is that of magazines.

Unless you’ve been living on a bench for the last few years, you’ll have heard that print media is on the decline. People aren’t buying newspapers or magazines as much as they used to, and do you know why? Because the Internet is better in almost every way. It’s current, interactive, shareable, and comes in every kind of media for your personal reading/listening/viewing pleasure. The only disadvantage of the Internet is that it’s not portable, but the iPad solves that problem. You would think, then, that print magazine publishers would step up to make the experience of their magazines just as exciting as the experience of, say, their websites (easily found on the iPad’s browser). But they have failed entirely.

The novelty of turning pages over with your finger on the touchscreen is over quickly, and it is sadly the only novelty. Commenting, the staple of every website from YouTube videos to news sites, is impossible. Sharing, whether via Facebook, Twitter, or email, is not an option. Articles do not link between each other, nor do they contain the embedded video that one can find on the same magazine’s website. And each issue of the digital version costs more than an entire year of the print version.

The world of technology moves fast, and consumers have no qualms about dropping something for newer and better. If the titans of news aren’t careful, they’ll be lining birdcages and bonking disobedient puppies in no time.