What I like about the Wired application is that it actually manages to encapsulate the sensual feel of using and reading a magazine. Its a far cry from the days of using Flash to make a turn page style mag appear on a screen, which although can look reasonable is totally pointless for magazine reading.

What is important however, is that the deep levels of interactivity aren’t lost when a digital tablet magazine (aka Wired) is created. The beauty and feeling of reading the magazine works wonderfully on a tablet, but thats exactly the point - its on a digital tablet, which can do alot more than paper and its important not to lose that.

If 2009 was the year of mobile (yes, after 10 years of empty promises) then 2010 will be the year of the Tablet device.

The iPad may seem like a big iphone to some but if looked at from the correct perspective, it could revolutionize the magazine/newspaper industry (not to mention coffee table browsing). Not just because its an Apple product either -Nvidia had at least 10 tablet prototypes on display in Barcelona last week, all of which looked pretty good.  The best proof for this notion has so far been created by Adobe/Wired, closely followed by sports illustrated.

There are many ways to position the products/apps that will work on tablet style devices:

• Apps - These will be very similar to what we are already familiar with, except with the addition of bigger screens, faster processors and easier navigation. An interesting space in the coming months, once apps are made especially for devices like the iPad rather than simply using the pixel doubling to enlarge apps that were made for the iphone. FYI -All the examples seen at Barcelona ran on the Android OS.
• iBookstore - Content providers/mags/newspapers could in theory use the ibookstore to allow people to buy daily versions of the newspaper, or weekly version of the magazine. Interactive PDF’s.
• Web - Html 5. Touch screen navigation. With the right design the web experience can become far better than the current offerings.