500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here.

Why didn't Wired use HTML5?

1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2.

2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you do not need an internet connection to view it. I think we can all agree that downloading a "magazine" before you leave the house, then finding you can't view most of it, would be an uber fail.

If the app had been based on HTML5 it would have been a 'mare to cache all of the content locally for offline viewing. HTML5 does offer local storage, but not in a way that would allow sites to cache 500MB of content. And even if they could, do you really want to wait 20 minutes for that Pixar feature to download over 3G?

I suppose you could have created a native app with everything bundled locally and a UIWebView for rendering the HTML5 content, but really what do you gain from that?

Because whatever software they use to layout the magazine can't export to HTML5. Since they're optimizing for time-to-market, they don't have time to retrain their designers to use different software, rewrite/extend it, or wait for the creators of that software to add export-to-HTML5 functionality, and so this was the most reasonable move. Give it some time, and they'll either move everything to HTML5 or a similar format with the features they need (their style of pagination, control over scrolling/swiping details in the UI, etc).

He should have mentioned Sports Illustrated at I/O 2010 for their magazine demo built in HTML5 to make his point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3j7mM_JBNw

I specifically did not purchase the Wired app because:

1) It's freakin' 500MB! Even though I have a 32GB iPad, I want that space for music and videos, not a magazine that I'll probably read once or twice for each issue.

2) It was super unclear how much future issues would cost, how they would be delivered, and how much space subsequent issues would use.

I've been very unimpressed with what the media has been able to create with the iPad. I think Apple needs to host a traveling "Developer Days" focused purely on the media, helping them to create really killer shit.

After all, these failures only lend ammo to the anti-iPad Kindle worshippers, when the problem is really the ability for media to innovate.

Clause 3.3.1 states:

    Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++,
    or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine

This means that any "interactive" elements must either be written directly in Objective C, or you're confined entirely to WebKit.

If you don't fancy building new Objective C apps every time you roll out an issue of your magazine, you have two options.. do it entirely in WebKit or pre-render everything and spew it out with a simpler native reader. Looks like Wired took the latter option. I'd always wondered how magazines would get around this issue - guess we've found out.

Wired iPad App Sells 24,000 Copies in First 24 Hours

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/wired-ipad-app-sells-...

"Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App?"

Because consumers are not trained to pay for web sites, whereas they're trained to pay AppStore-delivered apps, that's why.

80% of iPhone/iPad applications, both accepted and rejected ones, would work great in HTML5; the figure is of course much higher for applications that might have been written in flash.

But discussions about Apple's languages, SDK or even hardware platforms are moot; the game changer for companies is the AppStore, and access to this AppStore is the only thing they truly care about. They can, but don't want to, distribute most of their stuff over plain old HTTP. What they can't is getting paid for doing so.

Watching all of the iPad demos, it appears very likely that publishers see this "new" format as an opportunity to monetize content that the web (HTML) has been marginalizing. At the moment, most users just want to read good articles and content, which is freely available on the web. Publishers, Wired in this example and many more likely to follow, are looking for a way to differentiate their content by building an engaging experience around it. No one really knows for sure how this work out in the long run, but I do agree with the author in that it is very reminiscent of the CD-ROM era.

If we purchase that, can we export it and read it in reader using an open and free format? I suppose again, we can't use it and are forced to go in p2p to fetch a converted and open version.

I'm always willing to buy e-books in open format and they always end-up in broken or/and proprietary formats that you can't read on your platform.

This always reminds me of the DRM sucks visualization for the audio book : http://s3.amazonaws.com/the_brads/the_brads_drm.png

We can watch 1080p video via YouTube, there is zero reason you can justify keeping it a non html5 app wih large downloads. Making an HTML5 magazine/blog/ipadzine is like a candy store to me.

I get Wired magazine delivered to me by mail. The user experience is great, the pages turns just like real paper. The thing is indestructible too; I can drop it down a flight of steps without even a scratch showing up on it. My dog chewed up my first copy and it only cost me a few bucks to replace it. I can roll it up stick it in my pocket and read it at the beach, I don't even worry about getting sand in it. Can HTML5 deliver that experience?

The company that did the Time Magazine app for iPad: http://www.woodwing.com/en

inDesign extension/tool that will do iPad/AIR/HTML5 packaging:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1IZ-16FVs4

I think they also did the Sports Illustrated HTML5 magazine with thewondefactory.com

Did I miss something? Did adobe buy wired? He keeps talking about adobe here, but I don't see the connection.

Thanks Steve, this is definitely a better user experience than using flash.

Wired jumped the shark when Louis Rossetto sold out to Conde Nast and left the business.

Got a 403 Forbidden error when going to the article.

Bloatware charts new frontiers in 2010!

The fundamental argument is flawed - I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone could create the same seamless experience as the iPad Wired app in HTML5. I certainly haven't seen any demo's that would imply it's possible, saying "you could do that in HTML 5" if very easy to say, a lot harder to do.

Maybe if the authors of these kinds of posts provided us with a demos I'd start taking these missives seriously.