If you’re an InDesign user interested in publishing to the iPad, you’ve probably heard about Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite (DPS). I last wrote about in early October when Adobe announced that you’ll soon be able to publish an app for $399 using the new DPS Single Edition.
The Single Edition is big news because it lowers the price of entry to iPad publishing for InDesign users. But what if you didn’t have to pay anything?
Mag+ is an InDesign-based way to create apps for the iPad. While the Mag+ creation tools are free, you do have to pay $2,500 for an app that’s suitable for the iTunes App Store. (Subsequent issues are $500 each, and the most you’d have to pay to publish for one year is $6,000.) However, you don’t have to pay to post a bundled issue online. Anyone with the URL can view the issue on any iPad using the free Mag+ Reviewer.
Are there significant downsides to this? Of course! Your work won’t be discoverable on the App Store, you’ll have to convince readers to download the Mag+ Reviewer as well as your bundled issue, there’s no built-in payment structure… and that’s just the beginning of the negatives.
However, this post-for-free option is ideal for some situations. Maybe you need a proof of concept to convince a reluctant client. Or perhaps you’re an in-house designer creating an interactive manual for employees in the field. Most situations with captive audience are possibilities.
Learn More from Webinars
A quick and easy way to decide whether you want to give Mag+ a try is to attend a webinar. One webinar is already online; you can also attend another on November 17, 2011.
Enter the Mag+ Contest
If you’d rather learn by doing, you might as well give yourself motivation in the form of a contest. Until November 28, 2011, you can enter anything you design using the free Mag+ tools. If the judges think your use of the tools is particularly creative, you may win the right to publish anything you want to the iTunes App Store.
For more details, visit the contest page on the Mag+ website.
This article was last modified on January 8, 2023
This article was first published on November 1, 2011
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