Mag+ at Apple's Newsstand

Yesterday, Apple launched its Newsstand, a tailored hub for digital periodicals similar to iBooks, but for magazines and newspapers. Among the magazines available were a dozen titles that use the Mag+ platform. The Newsstand offers publishers a market for their magazines distinct from the rest of the App Store and gives readers a simpler way to shop for and manage their magazine apps.

Among the Mag+ titles there at launch were Popular Science+, Popular Photography+, Outside+, and Maxim+. Designed especially for iPad, they are among the first periodicals on Newsstand's virtual shelves.

"Newsstand is a key development we've been looking forward to on behalf of publishers and readers. A dedicated hub for periodicals within the iTunes ecosystem makes it so much easier to find and enjoy digital magazines," says Staffan Ekholm, CEO for Moving Media+, the company started to promote and develop the Mag+ platform. 

''Having taken Popular Science+, the first iPad magazine, to Apple's market-dominating tablet, Mag+ is at the forefront as digital publishing evolves," says Ekholm. "We're  committed to helping publishers deliver beautiful, engaging magazines to tablet readers and to exploiting all the revolutionary possibilities of tablet publishing."

"We are extremely excited to have a dedicated place for consumers to find our magazines, as well as offer great new features such as automatic downloads for subscribers," said Bonnier's Technology Group VP and Group Publisher Gregg Hano. "We have seen great success with the introduction of subscriptions on iPad, and Newsstand will only enable us to better reach a targeted audience with a cleaner and more organized system - which is a win-win for both publishers and consumers."

For readers, the Newsstand app will appear on their iPad desktop after they upgrade to iOS5, and will house all the magazines they subscribe to. Newsstand will also directly link to a section in the App Store just for periodicals, and as they are purchased new magazines will go directly to the Newsstand folder. For subscribers, new issues will automatically download in the background as they become available, displayed with the latest cover rather than a standard app icon.

Other Bonnier titles include Sound+Vision, TransWorld Snowboarding+ and C Mode, both English-language magazines, as well as the Swedish titles Allt om Mat+, Mama, Sköna Hem, STYLEBY+ and YourLife+.