SpeakEasy

09.20.10
posted by Josh Klenert

Paper to Pixels v2: Favorite Apps

Paper to Pixels v2: Favorite Apps

In advance of our first speaker series event dedicated to the iPad, we've asked our expert panel to submit their favorite apps. Here's a look at their fave design, news, and photo apps:

Design Apps
It's an interesting idea: taking web content and making it look like a designed magazine. hhhmmmm! -- D.W. Pine

Clean simple info graphics..plus you get the weather. 
Also like: 
 -- Michael Lawton and Peter Herbert

In my opinion the most successful magazine app on the iPad. The cells are beautifully composed, the diagrams and schematics are smart, entertaining and above all useful. The user experience is dynamic yet clear and the app is fun and easy to navigate. All this while maintaining brand consistency. --Neil Jameson

John Korpics' clean, crisp design aesthetic is perfectly suited for the iPad. --Joe Zeff

News Apps
Great use of our latest iPad funtionality - it's become my internal help guide. Plus, where else can you get more than 900 photos of Lindsey Lohan! -- D.W. Pine

Save web pages for later reading on your iPad or iPhone.
 -- Michael Lawton and Peter Herbert

Organized, clear and comprehensive. The layout (particularly in landscape) is extremely user friendly, the ad placement is subtle and not obtrusive and I love the addition of live radio.
 --Neil Jameson

They had it right from the start -- simple navigation with a multimedia payoff. --Joe Zeff


Photo Apps
Highbrow: 
Guardian Eyewitness 
A striking new photo everyday, all wrapped up in a clean, elegant design.
Lowbrow: Fatbooth (for iPhone)... 
Tons of fun!
 
-- D.W. Pine

Photo-centric app showcasing photographs from professional photographers with the option to flip between the image's caption to pro-tips on how the picture was taken. 
Also like... 
Fotopedia Heritage
--Photographs of UNESCO sites with maps and captions. 
-- Michael Lawton and Peter Herbert

A totally addictive experience. I found myself sitting for an hour scrolling through archival shots from WW2 when I was looking for paparazzi shots of the VMA's! The constantly rotating live home page is fun and organized and the lightboxes are easy to manage.
 --Neil Jameson

Touch Press set the standard for eBooks with its immersive photography. --Joe Zeff


Have an app to add? Comment below. Have a question for our panel, send them to mail@spd.org. Stay tuned for more apps to be discussed at Paper to Pixel v2: iPad Apps on Wednesday September 25th at the Helen Mills Theater.

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  • Grant Glas

    Apple doesn't want to hand out valuable subscriber info willy nilly; publishers don't want to give a third of subscription revenue to Apple in perpetuity, as current App Store guidelines would dictate. So there've been no subscriptions. Until now, maybe...

    http://gizmodo.com/5643005/the-sad-economics-of-an-ipad-magazine

  • Grant Glas

    Fortune is put together nicely... but when you got Korpics that's pretty much a lock. For me the best "design" goes to Wired. I know it's the obvious choice... The design is so good probably because they are using a lot more resources developing each issue compared to anyone else. (and selling a lot more)

    Wired however is not anywhere close to replicating some of the very cool technical features seen in other apps... i.e. Flipboard, PM and MacLife

    Josh,

    I'm really curious about the work flow for these magazines... Are they designing the print editions first then apply page design cues to the tablets? Same designer for the print and tablet page? Are the new tablet capabilities driving editorial decisions?

    Seems to me a completely separate tablet division with different stories etc. would make for a much more interesting product.

  • The Editors

    Here's a link for that guilty pleasure, the NY Post PIX app:

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ny-post-pix/id375478781?mt=8

  • Robert Newman

    I want to give a shout out for the NY Post's PIX app. Like Guardian Eyewitness, it's extremely simple and streamlined, updated daily, and free. You get some documentary photography, but mostly lots of fun celeb and NYC pics.

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