Digital Publishing Blog by PressPad Posts
Update: since this post was created we have changed our pricing. Now Newsstand apps are free for magazines publishers. Read more about our new offer.
When we first started thinking about PressPad we had plenty of ideas how it can work and what features it might have. But whatever level of advancement we were talking about one thing didn’t change: we wanted PressPad to be a self-service publishing tool.
You may ask why self-service is so important for us. When we first did research about publishing industry lots of products (not just mobile publishing, but all range of services) worked in old-school model: they let you contact a sales representative, next prepare a written quotation for you and get back to you when it is done.
We are often asked if Newsstand is somehow competitive to PressPad. It is in fact complementary, but it is not obvious so we decided to write down everything “Newsstand” really is:
Newsstand as a special folder on iOS devices where all newsspapers and magazines are stored. Easy.
Now to more complicated stuff: magazines utilizing Newsstand has to have subscriptions.
That means that user can choose from several different periods in whitch new issues will be delivered to their devices automatically. Available subscription periods are: 1 week, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months and one year.
When it comes to app names most obvious guess is your Magazine name, right? That is what we thought as well, but short look back at our previous experience with apps tells a different story.
We’ve been developing games, utilities, and spent some time with mobile book publishing. There’re few things we’ve learnt and they are all aplicable to Magazines as well. For one on the Apple’s App Store there are in fact two different names: the one that’s displayed below your icon/cover on the device, and the one that is being used on the App Store itself.
First one should be short, sharp and easy to remember. There’s no character limit, but here’s what happen when you use to many characters (in this case „This App Name is Way to Long”):
When it comes to mobile development nowadays you should consider these platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7/8. With iOS long enough on the market development cost is well known, and it is said to be quite high.
What you probably don’t realize is that Android development can be–and often is–even more expensive.