Thinking of joining the iPad revolution

[JonS]

I am a longtime iPhone user and use Kindle on it to read all my books. I'm thinking of purchsing an iPad for the house, so my wife and I can read our magazines and share books on it. I like being able to reduce paper waste by using paperless options, but my biggest gripe about the ebook movement is I have no way to share a book I've read and liked (if anyone has a solution for this let me know). So, I figure a book loaded on the iPad can at least be read by a second person when the first is done.

The question I'm seeking an immediate answer for relates to magazines. Does anyone know if I have a subscription to a paper version of Sports Illustrated or Time for example, whether this can be transferred to an iPad subscription? I hate to just cancel my paper subscription and lose the money.

Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[iPadCharlie]

I don't have the answer about the magazine subscriptions (but I am thinking that you can not transfer a paper subscription to an electronic subscription), but as far as the books you buy on Amazon, as long as you use the same Kindle account on your iPhone and iPad (and you will buy an iPad!) as you do on your Kindle, all those devices will have access to the same library.

 

[Pocobear]

Amazon has said that the magazine subscriptions, will be coming to the Kindle App soon. Their was an update to the Kindle App today, however I keep getting a "sync fail" message when I try to sync. So, I don't know, but they may be in the process of updating their data base to allow magazine subscriptions to be seen on the Kindle App. I hope that's what's happening, as I really want that feature!! Or I just may have had a bad update. Will wait until tomorrow and see what happens.

 

[iPadBiz]

Zinio is a good app platform for magazine reading. My continuing issues with e-mags is their cost. Currently most are more expensive or equal cost to their paper counterparts. IMO they should be less with slimed delivery and no printing costs.

Also keep an eye out for large magazine (ex Life) doing their own apps.

I'm not aware of any conversion initiatives from print to electronic versions by the publishers.

 

[Pocobear]

The Kindle Reader(Amazon) offers what they call magazine subscriptions for text based reading, such as THE READERS DIGEST. They are not, for the most part, the full color, picture laden magazines that many of you responders are thinking about such as MAXIM. Of course when the color readers become more popular, the prices will probably go up.

 

[JonS]

Thanks all for your imput and ideas. I'll check out the Kindle magazine options. I did log onto Sports Illustrated and their cost of an iPad subscription appears to be $5.00 per ISSUE. This is totally outrageous considering there is no printing or distribution costs. Certinaly cools down my interest in the iPad for those purposes.