FORTUNE Magazine

I got this app specially for the latest issue but ended up just signing up for a year print subscription for 20$ because it came with the digital copies! Once the app is open and you get your issue, it is 100% the best way to read a magazine, it is weird to say, but even the advertisements are not intrusive and they almost go right along with the articles. The integration of the articles with videos and stock quotes is simply fantastic along with ease of navigation to and from articles. I can not say enough about how great this app really is because this is the direction that magazines should be heading and everyone else should take after it! This App had 4 and a half stars until a ton of people couldnt download an issue, so dont let those negative reviews hurt your experience. I am sure the developer knows that there is an issue with the downloading of one of the magazines and will have it fixed shortly. Once you get this downloaded it is a simply wonderful experience.

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At $5 an issue for the digital copy, traditional print publishers are making themselves sitting ducks for up and coming startup publishers, a la Huffington Post, who will know how to leverage the iPad platform. If they don't adapt to this new world of digital, they're going to whither away (as they have been) with freebie Websites. Fortune, here's how you do it (from the Basic Business 101 textbook): you build your iPad reader base at, say, a $1.50 or $2 an issue. At this low price point, you are getting them used to paying (which is about as convenient as it gets with iTunes). You then actively gather user input from your readers, progressively optimizing your new digital magazine for this powerful platform. Readers become increasingly devoted to Fortune as new features and 'wow factor' elements are added. As readership grows, you gradually introduce modest price increases (from, say, $1.50 to $1.99 and up). Make sure you don't alienate your readers by the price increases, and do so only to get your bottom line profits to acceptable levels. That's it, it's not rocket science! What you need to do is get rid of the old fuddy duddies in your management ranks who are clueless about this strategy. Bring in young people who are devotees of people like Steven Jobs, management leaders who do get it. It's ironic that I'm having to tell a magazine like Fortune about how it's done, but you clearly need help!

Overall an excellent magazine app that has beautiful typeface, pictures and is easy to navigate. One feature (surprisingly) missing is a SEARCH capability across the Library and within each issue. Often times I will want to find all articles for a particular company, topic, or person. You should provide search results with the issue, article, and a little "snippet" of text around the search string (with the capability to toggle this last feature on/off). By tapping on the search result I should be taken to the article with the ability to return to the search results when finished reading the article. Another nice feature of search would be to search ALL Fortune issues (I.e., those not in my library). This would provide valuable info to me and provide Fortune an opportunity to sell me another issue or charge me for just the article (latter preferred). One final suggestion. Provide opportunity for digital only subscriptions that are slightly less expensive than print edition (because you save on ink, paper, and distribution costs).

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the table of contents link at the bottom of the app takes you to the publisher's message, not a table of contents. I can't find a TOC. I know everyone's seeking a "new publishing paradigm" and all, but I don't want to have to scroll through a huge set of thumbnails to guess at what's where. Am i missing something? (comments based on the free sample issue). And I think speccing an article in underlined italic is a mistake (see pp 42-43 of the sample issue). Bring me new stuff, but don't abandon things we've learned from the past. And if Apple wants to see publishers succeed, it better offer them an acceptable way to sell subscriptions, not costly individual issues. In this instance, something apple should have learned from publishing's past. Lastly, I assumed (I know, I know...) the mag issues would show up in iBooks, which I (again) assumed would become the central "library" for my books and mags--I've even loaded some digital camera manuals into iBooks. My sample Fortune issue did not appear on iBooks' shelves.

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I'm disappointed Fortune didn't get it's ducks in a row before releasing this app. The sign-up process is buggy requiring 3 tries before it would recognize my print account. Then after it finally did recognize my account it asked for a password to be set up. This process returned an error saying I needed to include at least one number and one letter in my password (which was already in the password) 10 minutes and 7 tries later it finally accepts the password, gives me access and allows me to download the desired issue. Of course the issue died halfway through. And low and behold upon reentering the app it again did not recognize that my account had already been set-up and asked me to set it up again. Waste another 30 minutes on my life? Thanks but no thanks. Fortune you need your QA people to do a better job of test driving this app before launching... How annoying was this UX? I went ahead and cancelled my print subscription too.