# Zinio and National Geographic Magazine on iPad



## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

The various hoopla about the Nook Color, and mention of it being usable to subscribe to and view National Geographic awoke a desire in me to subscribe to the magazine on a tablet of some sort, and it reminded me that somewhere I'd seen something like that for me iPad.  Checking in the Apps store, I did find a National Geographic sample, and it was gorgeous!  Even if you don't want to do anything else about this post, I recommend downloading the free National Geographic sample and viewing the article on King Tutankhamen.  It ends up that the subscriptions for National Geographic and a host of other magazines are managed by a company called Zinio.  Zinio is trying to make electronic magazine subscriptions available on all sorts of devices, and they currently have apps for PC, Mac, iPod, and iPad.  Their website indicates apps for other systems are coming, which I hope means an Android app.  The cool thing about this system is it means you can view any magazine subscription you get on a variety of different devices, and aren't limited to one gadget.

I downloaded the Zinio app to my iPad (the app is different than the National Geographic sample, which is self-contained and doesn't need an app to view it).  I bought a single issue of a travel magazine as a test of the system, and it worked fine, you have the whole magazine, including advertisements.  Subscribed to National Geographic, and have received my first issue, and I am still very pleased.  When you hold your iPad in portrait mode, you view a single page at a time for maximum detail, but for those two-page spreads, you can rotate the iPad to landscape and view two pages on the same screen.  You can double-tap on the screen to zoom in on a particular piece of a photo.  Quality of the conversions and level of detail is excellent, the amount of detail in photos is about as much as my eyes can see!  You can view the main article text in context amongst the photos, or in most articles there is an icon to tap on to bring up a scrolling stream with just the text of the article.  Some features such as a genealogy tree of King Tut's ancestors are dealt with in an interactive gizmo that was an improvement over blindly printing the tree on the screen.  Subscription cost for National Geographic was low, it was either $15 or $18 (can't remember) for a one-year subscription.  They have a wide variety of different magazines available, and I am dabbling with subscribing to National Geographic Traveler and Smithsonian, but holding off for now to make sure I'm not just succumbing to excessive enthusiasm.

I recently decided I wanted a more portable way to use Audubon Field Guides and the iBirds app when out doing nature photography, so bought an iPod (I'd discovered that I still had a little money left that I hadn't given to Steve Jobs, Amazon, or Google!).  I of course downloaded the Zinio magazine app to my iPod, but found that National Geographic (and presumably many other "picture" magazines) weren't converted for the iPod yet!  Not too surprising, and I doubt they'd be very impressive on the small iPod screen, but still disappointing!  I still highly recommend Zinio if National Geographic appeals to you.  If you're in doubt, download the National Geographic sample, and I believe there are free samples of some other magazines in the app store.


----------



## luvshihtzu (Dec 19, 2008)

I got the recent issue of National Geographic.  Think it was the Migration issue.  Really cool cover where you click on the picture of an animal running across the area and then a video starts up continuing the scene.  Fantastic and so beautiful.


----------



## sem (Oct 27, 2008)

I use Zinio to subscribe to several magazines including National Geographic. I have been satisfied with all of the mags that I have. I like to have things with me that are short and can be read while I am waiting. I really prefer to read books in bigger bites.


----------



## Selcien (Oct 31, 2008)

I just wanted to point out that the compatibility information is given when you click on a magazine at the zinio site, it's under the "subscription features" part of the page, they'll have icons. Mac and PC compatibility is standard, iPad and iPhone is hit or miss, for me it's mostly miss as four of my subscriptions are PC/Mac only, and I don't expect that to change.


----------



## sem (Oct 27, 2008)

I have only subscribed to mags directly from my iPad so they are compatible with that. I haven't tried to read them on my PC or my iPod.


----------



## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

The Hooded Claw said:


> I recently decided I wanted a more portable way to use Audubon Field Guides and the iBirds app when out doing nature photography, so bought an iPod


Did you buy iBirds? How did you like it? I have the Audubon app, and it's ok, but not as good as a good field guide (I normally use the National Geographic one in the field; the Sibley is a bit large). Both iBirds and the Audubon app are fairly expensive for something you can't try out ahead of time.


----------



## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

SusanCassidy said:


> Did you buy iBirds? How did you like it? I have the Audubon app, and it's ok, but not as good as a good field guide (I normally use the National Geographic one in the field; the Sibley is a bit large). Both iBirds and the Audubon app are fairly expensive for something you can't try out ahead of time.


Susan, I'm quite happy with iBirds. I've got the iBirds Pro app, and I like the search feature though I haven't used it in the field yet (I only got my iPod a couple of weeks ago). You can click off various stuff about the birds such as the location and the month, the body shape, primary colors, secondary color by where on the bird it is located, and it automatically narrows down a list of candidate birds. You can also choose whether you want a given search to show only birds that are common in that area and time of year (giving fewer finalists to sort through) or whether you want it to allow for possible strays and unusual birds. Whatever criteria you choose, you get a list with a (admittedly tiny) thumbnail of each bird and can click on a particular bird to see larger images and general guide-type information about that particular species. I like this, but it is very similar to what my Audubon Insect Guide has for insects (I don't have the Audubon Bird Guide, at least not yet), and if you didn't like the Audubon Guides you may not like iBirds, they seem very similar in general scheme of how they work. I must admit for casual browsing (as opposed to trying to figure out what something is in the field) the iPod apps aren't as satisfactory as a bound book.

iBirds Pro is only sale for "only" $15 now, and they have an iBirds Yard edition with fewer species for $3. If those seem high for iPod apps, consider how much you spend for a good bird guide! And as I acquire more of these guides, I'll be able to more easily carry them in the field (by carrying my iPod) rather than carrying a bunch of paper books.

Of the Audubon Guides, the only ones I have so far are the one for Insects (because that's what I'm most interested in) and the regional guide to Southwestern Deserts (because it is on sale for a few bucks off). I'm going to watch and pick up others when I have a strong need or they are temporarily marked down. The idea of using these things in the field isn't something I'd contemplated till just recently.

I should qualify all the above by saying I'm an amateur nature photographer whose main interests are insects and mammals, so I'm not a "pro" birder.


----------

