Pioneer digital publication The Magazine opens its archives and upgrades its app

SEATTLE, July 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Magazine, a born-digital periodical, has released a significant version 2.0 update to its iOS app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in partnership with TypeEngine. The Magazine launched October 10, 2012, and has produced 48 every-other-week issues of four or more reported features and essays as of today's issue. It is subscriber supported and has no advertising. The update has an easier navigation scheme among issues and articles, shows issue covers more prominently, enables single-issue sales, and is fully iOS 7 native. It also adds an account-based login and password option for easier access to its web site.

To introduce new readers and re-introduce former subscribers, The Magazine's archives from October 2012 to July 17, 2014 (Issue #47) will be available for free download through the new app until the end of August. Issues starting with #48 (July 31) will be available either as part of a monthly or yearly subscription, as before, or for individual purchase. After August 29, back issues will be available as single-issue purchases as well.

The Magazine's articles come from freelance writers, photographers, illustrators, and editors, including contributors to national and international publications such as the Economist, the New York Times, Modern Farmer, Wired, and Discover. Recent articles include a look at the transformation of farms and ranches through online auctions, a unique audio performance happening weekly since 1975 in a San Francisco, and MIT's long-running and astounding science-fiction book society. The Magazine's editor and owner, Glenn Fleishman, is a regular feature writer for the Economist and Boing Boing, and hosts the podcast The New Disruptors.

The Magazine was founded and launched by Marco Arment, the developer of Instapaper and the first employee at Tumblr, who created its original app and sold the publication and software in June 2013 to Fleishman, its editor since Issue #2. The initial app served The Magazine well, but the cost of maintaining a bespoke iOS app for a single publication no longer made business sense.

"The cost of creating a quality app that takes advantage of Apple's iOS while also continually advances to incorporate much-requested subscriber requests outstrips the benefit for a publication like mine," Fleishman said. "We needed a partner so that we could focus on editing, producing, and marketing The Magazine, and leave the programming work to a group that was entirely dedicated to it."

Fleishman turned to TypeEngine, co-founded by Jamie Smyth and Daniel Genser, which has had its digital publishing platform under development for nearly two years, and was pursuing a similar approach for design, data infrastructure, and distribution. Crucially, TypeEngine's approach allows publishers to release apps under their own Apple Developer account. This allowed The Magazine to retain its current subscribers as it moved to the new software.

"Readers will notice only improvements, as TypeEngine's team worked closely with me to preserve the easy readability that Marco and the designers at Pacific Helm baked into the original app," said Fleishman. TypeEngine accelerated support for several features for all its customers that were required for The Magazine, including pop-up footnotes, more extensive use of the Markdown formatting language, and inter-article links.

"We're huge fans of The Magazine, so we are thrilled to collaborate with Glenn on this update," said Genser. "From the beginning, The Magazine chose to break with antiquated norms – being digitally native, paying their writers well, and delivering engaging stories for a modern audience," added Smyth.

Subscribers to The Magazine and anyone who has downloaded or purchased issues can also read articles and download ebook versions of issues from the publication's web site using the same account login at no additional cost. iOS 6 users will be able to continue to use the last release of the current app indefinitely and receive new issues, as well as read and download via the web site.

SOURCE The Magazine