Magazines On An iPhone?

Ran across this article about the market for finite use apps i.e. “content for fee” on the iPhone and started thinking about what reading one of my faves would be like on such a small screen.

Time will tell whether there will be a market for buying content such as a traditional monthly magazine (finite content) as an app on your iPhone.  It is telling that people are willing to exchange the experience of flipping through the pages of a 9″x12″ glossy printed publication for a version that my old eyes could not even read.

On the other hand, I can see the day in the near future when I will be carrying around a 12″ tablet that is (almost) as thin and light as a magazine and runs for a whole day of traveling on a single charge. There would actually be some benefit to being able to download a few current magazines while sitting at an airport gate vs. having to buy them in the news stand and carry a small stack in your briefcase.

So perhaps products like the Kindle and future Tablets to come are the more likely devices for reading publications than are smart phones.  But if we look at today’s netbooks, we already have a low cost device that magazines can be downloaded onto and displayed with plenty of clarity and readability even for us aging road warriors.  The availability of always on wireless broadband will soon be prevalent in bigger devices rather than just in smart phones.  The big question will become what amount of content can a magazine publisher actually sell electronically, compared to the ad supported content which people can view for free on their websites.