As physical objects, I always thought books and magazines were pretty much the same thing; nothing changed my mind on that more than using the iPad. I use the tablet device religiously to read books at bedtime and to refer to sewing machine adjuster's manuals during the day when doing repairwork. It's perfect for books and manuals: All of the info with none of the bulk, with the occasional image that can be easily zoomed in on for clarity.
But magazines, man, different animal. Every mag app I've played around with on the tablet--Popular Mechanics, Wired, that horrible Zinio app--gives me a feeling of cognitive dissonance as soon as I open them. I easily lose track of "where" I am in the magazines, and although I'm not sure why that matters, it just feels wrong. With books and manuals the tablet disappears and I feel I'm absorbing pure information; with magazines I feel like I'm trying to drive a car with a cardboard box over my head.
Grafting magazines onto tablets provides a significant interface-design challenge, and I'll shortly be testing out Apple's much-ballyhooed The Daily publication. In the meantime, here's Macworld's look at it from the launch:
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