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All Things D reports that the file size of Condé Nast's magazine apps are too huge! The problem has been ongoing since Wired's first issue took up almost a half a gigabyte of memory on our beloved device, and has spilled over into the magazine publisher's latest iPad digital magazine, The New Yorker. Each issue takes up 173 megabytes, and that's for a weekly edition.
The ATD technology blog spoke with New Yorker Deputy Editor Pam McCarthy, who said that the problem may soon be fixed. She attributed the weighty apps to the backbone of the digital copies: an Adobe program that functions like an image reader.
Using Adobe's technology to create these digital issues means exporting large, image-rich layouts, instead of stripped-down text with only a few images. Doing this creates large files, which in turn creates large app releases for end-users.
McCarthy ended the conversation by saying, "The goal is to be all HTML, and we will be."
The biggest problem with magazines using apps as their main distribution method is Apple's limit on download size. Only apps under 20MBs are allowed to be downloaded over a 3G connection. So, if you wanted to download a magazine like Wired or The New Yorker, you'd be forced to connect to WiFi. By shrinking the size of the downloads, publishers may be able to get around this snag.
Of course, a better solution may be a piece of software that Apple has been rumored to be working on, but there's no confirmation that Apple will release a newspaper or magazine section for iBooks anytime soon.
You can read the full article on All Things D.
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