Bonnier 'Mag+' concept comes to the iPad with Popular Science app

Bonnier has released what it calls the "first step" toward its Mag+ vision for re-imaging the form of magazines with the release today of an iPad app for Popular Science.

The new app, called Popular Science+, is priced at $4.99, which includes the April issue, a "library" for storing future issues, and a store for purchasing new issues each month. The description on the iPad App Store says the app delivers all the content from the print issue, "completely reimagined and redesigned for the iPad, with an intuitive navigation that lets you effortlessly explore each issue."

Here's the email from Sara Öhrvall, Bonnier's senior vice president of research & development, announcing the release:

Thank you so much for your previous interest in our Mag+ concept. I am writing to you to tell you about our launch tomorrow on the iPad. For us it will be a very very exciting day. We have taken our first step towards our Mag+ vision by building a Popular Science digital magazine for the iPad. Popular Science+ is available now in the iTunes and tomorrow live for the lucky iPad owners. If you want to have a first preview of the magazine, check out our Beta Lab at www.bonnier.com/betalab.

Mag+, Bonnier’s digital magazine platform, is a project that began months ago in a collaboration between Bonnier’s global R&D task force and BERG, a London-based design studio. It is now an ongoing project across all Bonnier titles in the U.S. and Europe to rethink the way magazines can be read on a new generation of full-color, touchscreen tablet devices.

It’s been a fascinating journey with only 60 days available since Apple announced the iPad in San Francisco. We’ve had 6 editorial teams in 3 countries working together to re-imagine the form of magazines. The feedback from the Mag+ video was encouraging and since then we have been deconstructing tons of magazines, used more whiteboard space
than any project before and building many many prototypes. We are really proud of what we have achieved together with the
PopularScience+. And there is a lot more to come.

Our design vision has been to avoid what our friends at BERG call “a wrist screen running clock software” – we wanted to build the watch. It should feel like you are touching the actual magazine, using your natural body language – not looking through the screen and layers of buttons.

Magazines are a luxury that readers can lose themselves in. We have built a digital magazine for a device you can curl up with on the coach. It allows readers to lean back, away from the browser, and just focus on the bold images and rich storytelling. We wanted to build a linear story with a beginning and end. Because we believe that reduced complexity increases your immersion. And that the sense of completion is important.

Hope you will enjoy it. Please feedback your thoughts and ideas. And read more about our design principles and join the conversation about the future of the magazines at www.bonnier.com/betalab.

And don't forget to check out our Popular Science+ digital magazine at iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/popular-science/id364049283?mt=8

Best,

Sara