A little plug tonight for one of my favourite iPad applications, Zinio. Actually it is not just an iPad application, there are versions that will run on iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, PC and Mac. Zinio is a magazine reader.
You can purchase magazines (single issues or subscriptions) from inside the iPad app, or via their website. Whichever way you buy the magazines, they will be available to read on all your devices where you have installed the free client application. I’ve been using Zinio for over a year now, and have purchased a range of magazines from a few different categories; health & fitness, cycling, computers and of course my latest obsession, photography.
I find reading the magazines on the iPad device is very good, you can zoom in and out, and change to a text mode if wanting to read a heavily text based article. Obviously the color screen of the iPad is brilliant for magazines, as opposed to the Kindle for example, due to all the color photos.
It is very easy to search for and purchase magazines (a good thing in some ways, but easy to spend money). However it is a very cheap way to buy magazines, especially if you take advantage of their frequent special offers. For example over the last year I have purchased a number of photography publications. These include active subscriptions to 6 magazines (1 weekly and 5 monthly), 3 single issue purchases and 4 “superguides” (eg “The Ultimate Guide to Digital Photography” and “The Photographers Guide to Photoshop”). These have cost me a total of approximately $130, but including all the future issues to come as a part of the active subscriptions, it represents over a hundred magazines, an average cost of only about $1.20 per magazine. In the newsagent, it is difficult to buy a photography magazine for less than $12-$13, the “superguides” are more like $20. So it is a significant saving.
You won’t find every Australian magazine there (but there are quite a few), but you will find a lot of magazines there that you cannot purchase here.
So, if like me you love reading magazines, download the free Zinio app and explore some free samples and see what you think!
Andrew's Blog 
February 1, 2012 at 4:54 am |
I downloaded the zinio app but I found they didn’t have a lot of the fitness mags that I like.
February 1, 2012 at 3:39 pm |
Thanks for the tip, I’ll check that one out. I’ve already downloaded the apps for National Geo, US Runners World (because the Oz one is pants) and The Monthly, but I like the idea of being able to read on my laptop if Jason is using the ipad.
February 2, 2012 at 12:42 am |
I downloaded the zinio app as well but it didn’t have some of the artist magazines I like to read. I am going to explore it further, though.
I am glad you performance review went well. I used to hate that time of year, as well as the evaluation every five years, where a principal would come in to observe me teach for an hour or so.