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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
Hot Rod Peels Out On the iPadWednesday, February 1, 2012 We should say at the outset that the Hot Rod magazine compilation of classic content is precisely what  more enthusiast books should be doing with this platform. Magazines for hobbyists, whether racing car nuts or quilters, have a special place in readers’ hearts. The relationship these longtime subscribers often have with a publication is real and deep. A platform like the iPad presents archival material with a lushness that speaks to fond memory, and the touch interface invites exactly the kind of intimacy enthusiast readers feel for a book. Hot Rod Then & Now makes accessible from a single pane a decade by decade catalog of classic covers, images from across those same years, recent videos, important and memorable articles from the issues, and even a handy “garage” where all of your favorites can be stored. The app appears to be pretty simply built, perhaps in HTML5, with much of the relatively light app’s content coming from the Web. The video selection, for instance, streams from recent clips on Hot Rod’s YouTube page. The cover art is luscious and fills the page in portrait mode. The articles are facsimiles often shot from old copies that have yellowed and often bear pencil notes. Whether by intent or happenstance, the feel of reviewing old issues is much like finding a box of your old magazines in a basement. There is nothing especially fancy about this build. It is basically a series of slide shows of old content. There are no dazzling embeds or fade ins. But in the case of a nostalgia trip little extra artistry is required. The interface is pleasant enough. Each major content well pops up to offer further categories of content in which to drill. Once you tap into a folder of material, the section fills the page and can be navigated by pop-up thumbnails. The images are a joy to peruse, with no lag and good responsiveness. Hot Rod Then & Now is free and ad-supported. As one swipes the pages the screen will occasionally flash white while an ad for a parts distributor or Hot Rod’s own house ads fill the display. Again, we suspect the ads are being pulled from the Web and so new campaigns can be swapped in dynamically over time. We do have gripes. On the content side, we wish the great content came with captions. Aside from titling the collections of content, there is little descriptive editorial here to describe what we are seeing. The app does crash, especially on our original iPad test unit. And there is an unfortunate disconnect between the landscape orientation of the top line navigation interfaces and the optimal viewing orientation, which is portrait mode. In most cases the user has to find new content in one mode and then switch it to the other to view it to best screen filling effect. There should be a top level navigation option in portrait mode. Still and all, this is the kind of app that should work as both a fan pleaser and a customer acquisition tool. Hot Rod is not giving away the store by any means in this free app. But it is using a generous selection of archival material to communicate to old readers, newcomers and perhaps lapsed subscribers, how their hobby book is as much of an experience as it is a magazine. Let’s see more of this.  If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com
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