Wired magazine’s UK version has unveiled its debut iPad edition alongside its December print edition today.
Weighing in at a hefty 528Mb, £2.39 download, inside a lightweight library app wrapper, this edition is a one-off before the mag “takes a slight pause to assess/iterate before moving to monthly publication,” as Wired UK editor David Rowan told paidContent:UK last month.
When Wired’s U.S. cousin launched its iPad edition, it clocked 100,000 first-month downloads in June; that’s about 13 percent of its December 2009 circulation (754,574).
On that rate, Wired UK, whose average, January-to-June circulation was 50,009, could expect 6,501 downloads. Eventual figures could either be tempered by the dual existence of the U.S. edition in iTunes Store, or buoyed by the certainty that readers will be tech-savvy early adopters…
Conde Nast reckons 18 percent of Wired UK magazine readers own an iPad, and even thinks the group could eventually get up to 40 percent of its sales from tablets.
Wired U.S. iPad sales have subsequently dwindled to 32,000 for September despite a price reduction, according to this AdWeek feature, which warns “publishers are squandering an opportunity with clunky apps, bad pricing strategies and unsustainable ad tactics”.
As an avid Wired reader since 1994 and a happy current annual print subscriber, I have little inclination to go tablet.
Whilst the £2.39 price is cheaper than the £3.99 print cover rate, it’s pricier than the effective £2 a month print subscribers pay by virtue of the £24 annual print subscription. “(iPad) subscription offers will follow later, once Conde Nast reaches agreement with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) on how subscriber downloads will work,” Rowan writes to readers.
{tweet_id=”29560584328″}
{tweet_id=”29560701824″}
{tweet_id=”29561175327″}