Conde Nast Joins Apple With iPad Versions Of Its Magazines

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The digital media revolution continues unabated as yet another big name announces plans to bring its content to the iPad. Conde Nast, publisher of major magazines like The New Yorker, GQ, and even fellow tech press Wired, has made the announcement, and even offered some details on pricing.

Not too long after Time made its big move to the Apple frontier, and only slightly later than Hearst announced that it had finally settled the various issues it had with Apple (though they weren’t being too clear about what was going to happen to the subscriber data involved, which had long been a sticking point but apparently had been resolved), Conde Nast made its move, so it’s clear that this is part of a much larger migration, and it’s safe to say that this is likely going to change the game as we know it.

They kick things off this week with the release of The New Yorker, which will not only allow you straight digital subscription for your choice of $5.99 a month (and from the sounds of it, you’ll get four issues for that $5.99) or $59.99 for the year, but if you’re already getting in the dead-tree version you’ll be able to get the iPad version gratis. By the end of the month, fully seven other magazines will emerge with iPad versions: Wired, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Self, GQ, Allure, and Golf Digest will all hit your tablet for the surprisingly low price of $1.99 per month, or you can pay up for the year at $19.99.

This, frankly, is a move I welcome. We keep hearing, over and over and over again, about how important it is to recycle our paper goods and not use too many trees, but it’s moves like this that will not only improve our accessibility to publications, but will also do well from an environmental standpoint. Costs go down because the ink and paper costs are gone with them, and you can carry around a library (or at least access to it if the issue of cloud computing comes up) in a tablet’s worth of space. It’s smart from a whole lot of angles.