Magazine Subscriptions and the iPad

It is very possible the iPad will save the publishing industry. I no longer buy magazines: a) 90% of the content does not interest me; b) I travel too much so subscriptions are useless; c) when they arrive, if I'm not in the mood to read them, they begin to stack up around the house.

But that doesn't mean I don't love magazines and newspapers. Under different circumstances this is what I would subscribe to: a) Wall Street Journal; b) Scientific American; c) The New Yorker; d) The Atlantic Monthly; e) Los Angeles Times; and, f) Rolling Stone Magazine (maybe).

I am re-reading Richard Dawkin's The Ancestor's Tale, which reminded me of a great graphic in the January, 2009, print edition of Scientific American. I don't subscribe to Scientific American but I saw it in the local library. I went to SciAm's website and found the article, but I can't access the entire article without a subscription. An annual subscription costs $39.99 but gives one access to all issues back to 1993.

So, now with the iPad, I will now subscribe to some of those magazines. Why didn't I subscribe to them before? After all, I had the portable Macs and desktop Macs. For two reasons: 1) the iPad experience is completely different; and, b) I can read these magazines anywhere on an iPad. That's not true even with a portable laptop. I can't read from a laptop while standing in line at an LAX security line and I can't very well pop one my laptop while stuck in traffic on the I-405 freeway, but in both cases, it will be a snap, and a joy, to pull out the iPad.