Apple Buys Texture, a 'Netflix For Magazines' App (ft.com) 43
Apple said on Monday it will acquire Texture, a digital magazine app, as the iPhone maker looks to fill the gap left by Facebook's pullback from news distribution. From a report: The deal is Apple's latest move to build out its content and services platform, coming just three months after it announced plans to acquire Shazam, the music recognition app, for around $400m. First launched in 2010, Texture has been described as "Netflix for magazines," as its $10-per-month subscription service provides unlimited access to more than 220 publications including People, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, National Geographic and Vogue. Further reading: Recode.
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If that's as far back as you remember, you haven't really been around here that long. Slashdot has always had some crap stories, and marketing stories, and political agenda stories. Why if you look at the Wayback machine and set it for April 1999 you'll see stories about the Wing Commander and Star Wars movies, as well as Apple buying rights to use the MP3 codec.
Also not sure how buying a magazine streaming service is "political" but it is of interest to some of us who have been consuming traditional prin
Uphill both ways, in the snow. (Score:2)
Ah yes, the golden age of crap from Roland Prickpull and Bonehead Assholeton. And that blue hipster twat who used to link his stories to a malware site.
And it wasn't just that they were crap, you used to get the same one two or three times.
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You forgot to mention all the Hot Grits posts....
How's this work? (Score:1)
It's almost as if you would need.. a pad... (Score:2)
A magazine is large, meant to be viewed two pages at a time. How do you look at something like that on a cell phone?
It's almost as if it would be better to make a much larger device, some kind of digital pad, on which you could view larger pages or even two at once...
Hmm, perhaps Apple should look into producing something like that to complement the magazine app.
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It's almost as if it would be better to make a much larger device...
Or maybe reformat the content. If we can solve that problem, soon we might see newspapers with their own websites.
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It's almost as if it would be better to make a much larger device...
Or maybe reformat the content. If we can solve that problem, soon we might see newspapers with their own websites.
Texture does reformat many magazine articles for viewing on phones. They don't do it for all the mags they carry though probably because of licensing issues. They also have a topical "Highlights" area where articles are re-formatted for phones. There is also a search function to search through the current and back catalog for articles by keyword.
Though reading long format articles on your phone is always a bit of pain in my opinion. But that is an issue of the delivery device: The phone. And I would not wan
Re: How's this work? (Score:2)
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I found it funny, when my grandma, and my not very smart Apple fan dad installed "magazine" and "newspaper" apps. Nearly the epitome of the opposite of a digital native ... The only thing missing would be for them to print out the Internet. (We actually have a word for that, here in Germany: Internetausdrucker. It means literally that.)
So this nonsense right here ... Let's just say, the people who coined the term "Eternal September" couldn't have imagined how bad it would get ...
We need a new Internet. For real digital natives only. (So if you confuse the WWW with the Internet, don't have root on any of your devices, don’t own a personal computer, or can't at the very least make a shell script, you can't get in.)
Ah, glad to see the Computer Priesthood is alive and well, and still doesn't get why it will never be the year of Linux on the Desktop!
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Dude, the poster claims to be a "digital native", which means it's some whiny kid whose opinion is irrelevant.
It's a fucking millennial mouthing off.
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Dude, the poster claims to be a "digital native", which means it's some whiny kid whose opinion is irrelevant.
It's a fucking millennial mouthing off.
Oh, look, it's one AC coming to the aid of another AC.
BAN ALL ACs, SLASHDOT!!!
Snark (Score:3)
What is a "magazine"?
The difference between a "digital magazine" and a web site is the ads are always full-page in the magazine.
Re:Snark (Score:4, Funny)
It's like an ebook with color full page advertisements.
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A full page advertisements that knows where you live, where you shop, what you eat for breakfast, and your political affiliations.
George Orwell never predicted we'd voluntarily give up privacy and individual freedom for discounts on our favorite brands.
If Apple went with Netflix model, could be good (Score:4, Interesting)
An app by itself that just presents the world of magazines as we know it, is nice but not very useful. There are not that many magazines I actually want to read...
Now what would be lots more interesting, is Apple really going the Netflix model - in addition to providing access to normal magazines, what if Apple spent even just a billion dollars on producing really out there magazines? Something no traditional publisher would produce because of risk, but Apple could back and present through the app as a hook, the same way Netflix has original series that are a draw to use the service and thus also see other content.
Apple could even do things like short run magazines, that only had five-ten issues, or really interactive stuff since it's presented in an app. There are a lot of exciting possibilities there!
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Apple could even do things like short run magazines, that only had five-ten issues, or really interactive stuff since it's presented in an app. There are a lot of exciting possibilities there!
And they already have the Publishing and viewing Infrastructure there for rich, interactive content, with their largely unknown, but still excellent (and Free!), iBooks Author Application:
https://www.apple.com/ibooks-a... [apple.com]
Re:If Apple went with Netflix model, could be good (Score:4, Insightful)
> An app by itself that just presents the world of magazines as we know it, is nice but not very useful
You're making a pretty blanket statement based on your personal tastes. It may not be useful - to you - but many people would find it useful and more cost effective than buying magazines all the time. Also, have you actually looked at what's on offer for Texture, or are you just going by what you see at the supermarket as "the world of magazines"? I took a look a few minutes ago and was surprised to see there is a magazine devoted to beer, among other things.
I'm not sure this would be for me, but if I did get a subscription I can easily see myself reading Popular Mechanics, Make:, This Old House, National Geographic and PC World, among others while I'm on the train commuting. Would be a damn sight better than reading the fragmented snippets of news and social media I currently make do with on that trip.
It's all the same old, same old. (Score:2)
Also, have you actually looked at what's on offer for Texture
I've used other magazine apps (and comic book apps) so I'm pretty familiar with what they can do, and what can be had. Although I've not subscribed to Texture I did look at the list of magazines and they are pretty standard fare (it's nice to see Make is still going).
I took a look a few minutes ago and was surprised to see there is a magazine devoted to beer, among other things.
I live in Denver, so I would assume there are several hundred magazin
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Thanks for keeping my cynic views on the state of humanity alive.
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> These days a magazine is just a dead-tree version of a web site, despite what the publisher wants you to think.
Unlike you I have read a few magazines in the last 15 years and I really must say that's a very poor characterization indeed. Some cheap ass magazines that is true, but on balance the average magazine article is put together far better than 98% of the "articles" published to even major online only sites. Apartmenttherapy.com or inhabitant.com is like an 8 year old's essay compared to Archite
Next up... (Score:2)
They're going to buy Weeping Gorilla.
should have stayed focused (Score:2)
If they start playing around with things like buying a magazine app here or setting up a cloud thing there then before you know it they're Google and they have no idea who they are, where they're going, or what their product is and neither will their customers.
$10/month for 200 magazines versus $10/month each? (Score:2)
I'm genuinely curious how the magazine publishers find this profitable. $10/month is about the price of a single digital-only subscription to many of these magazines.
If Texture is really providing the full content - the same as with a direct subscription - then I'm mystified. Why don't these publishers offer their subscriptions for $1/month or so? I'd snap up several of those in a flash. Why would they be satisfied with possibly substantially less delivered via a service like Texture?
Infrastructure and support ain't free (Score:2)
> If Texture is really providing the full content - the same as with a direct subscription -
> then I'm mystified. Why don't these publishers offer their subscriptions for
> $1/month or so? I'd snap up several of those in a flash. Why would they be
> satisfied with possibly substantially less delivered via a service like Texture?
That $1/month/customer would be gross revenue, not net revenue. Try putting up the necessary web servers to handle thousands of paying customers browsing your site. Bandwid
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Thanks for the clarification.
Maybe I misunderstand how Texture works. It sounds like you're saying that they - not the magazine - are hosting the magazine's content. If so then I'm not sure I'd be perfectly happy with that as a subscriber (Will controversial articles be censored? Will there be typos or factual errors added?)
I thought it was just a subscription that permitted access to the online magazines' existing websites. E.g., "The New Yorker" magazine has its own website for digital subscribers and