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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
'Not Baby Esquire—iPhone Esquire' .jpg) at $2.99) launched late last week in Apple’s iTunes App Store in tandem with the newsstand January issue. Like last month’s GQ issue from Condé Nast, Esquire reformated and enhanced the complete content of the issue. A video demo of the iPhone Esquire at Esquire.com (see embedded below) walks readers through the experience. iPhone Esquire offers several ways to enter the content. A browsing mode lets you flip laterally through large images that index all of the major elements of the magazine front matter, feature well and pictorials. A list mode turns the same content into a lateral scroll. In both cases the user can filter the magazine content down to its major content types (features, style, women, etc.). Tapping an article can bring an image to full screen or offer a set of tools for saving the article to favorites, emailing or posting to Facebook. Some extra multimedia has been included, such as a video of Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive, Kate Beckinsale. An Esquire in-app store also allows users to purchase Esquire books and order a print subscription to the magazine. App developer ScrollMotion created the mobilized magazine experience. Equire editor-in-chief David Granger says in his special editor's letter for the edition, "Welcome to Esquire. Not a special edition of Esquire. Not a baby Esquire. But iPhone Esquire." He adds, "it's the same content (with a few extras) in a very nimble alternative version." The app is supported by advertising from Unilever exclusively for the first three issues. AXE ads are encountered throughout the content mix, including embedded video spots. While the GQ approach to the iPhone seems focused on re-creating the magazine look and feel on the phone, Esquire aims more toward mobilizing the content in easily consumable forms. GQ offers a landscape mode that flips through every page of the original issue layout and then lets the reader drop into a different portrait mode view of the same content for easier reading. Esquire focuses entirely on the portrait mode and converting the page-flipping experience of print into a combination of lateral navigation, long scrolls and image zooms. Both interfaces have their challenges in that they are stuffing a tremendous amount of varied content into a small form factor. Both apps have different modes of navigation, and it is easy enough for the user of either app to click about wondering what tap has which effect in a given context. Days after iPhone Esquire launched with its monthly schedule of mobile issues, Condé Nast announced that GQ would also publish every issue on the iPhone as well. Having two robust, full-content versions of magazines with different designs and navigations schemes on the iPhone only raises the question of standardization. Both Hearst and Condé Nast are part of the recently announced joint venture of publishers who will be developing print-branded products for mobile devices like upcoming e-readers and tablets. Part of the venture's charge is to create standard applications publishers can use for crafting their digital re-creations. It will be interesting to see whether standard interfaces and in-app behaviors will be part of that mix or if opening a digital magazine will be like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates—you never know what you are going to get. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
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