No one has ever accused media mogul Richard Branson of playing it safe, and today the multi-millionaire shook things up again by announcing the debut of Project, an iPad-exclusive magazine. While Project will publish a monthly “issue” it won’t be a bunch of static content like subscribers would get with a traditional periodical. Instead, the app will morph and change over the course of the month, adding new content and incorporating content from readers and bloggers. For instance, the mag is currently hosting a Facebook contest which is inviting users to redesign the front cover. The entries will be available for download in issue three and the winner will get to design a crowdsourced cover early next year.
 If the idea seems hard to wrap your head around, that’s because it is, and even Branson had trouble figuring it all out at first. “When my daughter Holly, who is Special Projects Manager at Virgin Group, first told me that she had agreed to sponsor an iPad-only magazine idea from one of our young entrepreneurs, Giovanni Donaldson, I thought she was talking double Dutch!” he said. “It wasn’t until Anthony, Gio and Holly showed me the amazing, innovative editorial and advertising in PROJECT that I ‘got’ how groundbreaking digital publishing can be. To be frank it blew me away.”
The project is being overseen by former FHM editor-in-chief Anthony Noguera, who has big plans for the publication. “I must be the luckiest editor alive,” Noguera said. “To be given the opportunity to create a magazine that is completely unique and innovative, to work with like-minded journalists, contributors and advertisers who are just as passionate and excited as I am about PROJECT has been inspiring. I am proud of PROJECT. Proud of what we have achieved and delighted to have played a small part in determining what will become the future of what we as readers expect from the magazines of tomorrow. Today, PROJECT has set the standard.”
Project is available now for $2.99 an issue, so go ahead and take a peek if you’re curious. What do you think? Is this the future of magazines, or is Richard Branson just throwing away a lot of money on a really crazy venture?
FREE!
iPad Only App – Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-11-30 :: Category: Lifestyle
[ Richard Branson Launches Project Magazine is a post from 148Apps ]
written by tmunzke
\\ tags: anthony-noguera, daughter, future, lifestyle, online magazine, opportunity, over-the-course, playing-it-safe, project, project magazine, publishing, richard branson, virgin, virgin-media
Developer: n-Space, Inc
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 2.69 out of 5 stars
 Golf Cart Ranger is a great looking little game for the iOS devices. It promises simple gameplay with a friendly, golf cart approach and a native control scheme that should deliver easy control. The premise is straightforward: drive a cart over a driving range and pick up balls while avoiding obstructions and snagging fuel.
But then that’s it. The game doesn’t really evolve too much from the onset. Courses get stranger, but the initial principles remain throughout the entire experience. Great games based on simple mechanics should dynamically change over the course of the experience. The core gameplay should remain in place, of course, but the game should add layers of creativity and difficulty as it moves along.
The control scheme is simple. The cart automatically moves and players touch the right or left side of their device in order to turn. It would have been nice to see some form of til control, but it’s understandable that this may have been tough to achieve. The game takes on a top-down perspective, so rotating through tilt may have wound up disorienting.
This package has 36 levels to start, with the option to buy more once in the game. Within the 36 levels are three different course types. But, really, it all comes down to picking up balls with a golf cart. The charm is high for the first few tries… then it settles into monotonous. And the monotony degrades into being downright boring. That’s this game’s fatal flaw; beyond some nice leaderboards and a simple presence, there’s nothing here to attract addiction.
 That all said, this game does deliver a strong visual display. Golf Cart Ranger packs clean, sharp graphics. The textures are a bit muddy, but the rich color scheme makes up for it. The gopher on the title screen art is present, but he’s really just about the only “cute” portion of the title.
The game is on sale right now, during its time of release, so it may be worth the $0.99 entry price. Once it hits $2? How much can one person love driving over little white dots?
[ Golf Cart Ranger Review is a post from 148Apps ]
written by nimajuni
\\ tags: $1.99, arcade, based-on-simple, device-reviewed, Iphone, iphone apps and games, over-the-course, overall-rating, package, price, ranger, rating
The situation is explained by Saurik in a post on Cydia:
The key thing to realize is that Intelliborn, the company that brought you such products as IntelliScreen and MyWi, are the same developers who created Rock Your iPhone.
Unfortunately, due to some early miscommunication, rather than us being in a position where we were cooperating on platforms like Cydia, we ended up spending most of our time competing with each other over the course of the last two years.
This was not good: Rock ended up wasting a ton of effort implementing Cydia, while SaurikIT got dragged into an “apps battle” to compete with the Rock exclusives from Intelliborn.
The primary goal of this new world, then, is to put everyone “back on task”, with a true collaboration rather than this incessant competition.
For users who were happy with Rock due to its speediness. Saurik says this was because of some incorrect/dangerous shortcuts which led to the “essential upgrade” that was required for Spirit and then crashed many devices. Now that the apps competition is over, Saurik will be able to concentrate on platform issues full time and hopefully improve performance.
As part of the collaboration, Rock’s backup feature is being implemented in Cydia and all previous Rock backups and licenses will be merged into the Cydia database. Comments and ratings also being looked at and Saurik is consulting with the major repos on different implementation ideas.
This announcement should come as welcomed news to jailbreakers who will benefit from being able to get all their apps in one place as well as enjoy the improvements to Cydia.
 written by nhiepphong
\\ tags: announcement, apps, Cydia, improvements, Iphone, news, over-the-course, platform-issues, post-on-cydia, rock, saurik, time
 For the first time in the short history of the iPad, Time Inc. magazines will finally be free for the magazine subscribers, something that magazine publishers have been desperately waiting for Apple to green light since the iPad launch.
Up to this point, the magazines (People, Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune) have been selling for their regular newsstand price, leaving regular subscribers to have to really pay for the same issue twice to get content on the iPad. Even though Steve Jobs was clear that he wanted magazine subscriptions to exist on the iPad, Apple didn’t offer the tools to magazines to do so. In fact, there is still no way for publishers to sell subscriptions online, but at least subscribers can now access their issues for free.
The news seems to be coming at a good time, because many people were, and still are, in outrage that Time, as well as other publishers, sell their digital copies at full price. Without the production costs of the magazines on the digital copy, the consensus was that the publishers are all ego driven, looking to make huge profits from the tech marvel of the iPad.
Popular Science editor-in-chief Mark Jannot explained that “”We’re trying to make our readers not feel like we’re slapping them in the face as we explore this new world, but we’re going to continue to be aggressive about pricing. We’ll see what the market will bear.”
Their gamble has been a success so far, with a few different magazines in the Top Grossing charts on the iPad. We’ll see how well individual issues do over the course of the next few months, but the new deal for subscribers seems to be gold.
The first free-to-subscribers issue from Times Inc. is this week’s People Magazine, with the rest of the titles to follow suit over the course of the month.
[Source: Fortune]
[ Time Inc. iPad Magazines Now Free For Subscribers is a post from 148Apps ]
written by gunturbabu
\\ tags: Apple, copies-at-full, digital, ipad, magazines, offer-the-tools, over-the-course, people, production, science, sports, tech, time inc, tools
 The 2009 Best App Ever awards winner for “Best Feel Like A Local App“, Where To?, has been updated to version 3.0.
On top of a “completely revised user interface with an all-integrated leather interior” (that looks quite nice I might add), Where To? has been optimized for the iPhone 4, complete with the full retina display treatment, multitasking support, and built in SMS, so you don’t have to leave the app for any reason.
“We love the new iPhone 4 with its brilliant new display. Where To? 3.0 looks gorgeous on the new iPhone and we hope our users will love it as much as we do”, says Ortwin Gentz, FutureTap CEO.
The updates aren’t done though, “3.0 sets the foundation for a whole bunch of new features we‘ll be implementing over the course of the next months, the pipeline is full of new stuff, we’ll certainly not rest on our laurels.”
$2.99
iPhone App – Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2009-06-23 :: Category: Navigation
[ Where To? 3.0 Is Now In Leather is a post from 148Apps ]
written by tanloc2t
\\ tags: gps, interior, Iphone, leave-the-app, love-the-new, over-the-course, pipeline, rating, review, sms, travel, user-interface
|
If the idea seems hard to wrap your head around, that’s because it is, and even Branson had trouble figuring it all out at first. “When my daughter Holly, who is Special Projects Manager at Virgin Group, first told me that she had agreed to sponsor an iPad-only magazine idea from one of our young entrepreneurs, Giovanni Donaldson, I thought she was talking double Dutch!” he said. “It wasn’t until Anthony, Gio and Holly showed me the amazing, innovative editorial and advertising in PROJECT that I ‘got’ how groundbreaking digital publishing can be. To be frank it blew me away.”
:: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Comments