Filed under: iPhone, App Store
First Look: TIME Mobile, a slick magazine for your iPhone / iPod touch
Instead of sifting through the piles of TIME magazines at your doctor's office, where you don't know who's healthy or unhealthy hands have touched the pages, you now have another option to browse through TIME content on your iPhone.
The recently launched TIME Mobile [iTunes link] app provides a better browsing experience and more content than the mobile version of magazine's website. In addition, the app brings with it support for video, which is lacking on the mobile version of TIME's site and not supported for the iPhone on the full version of the site because the videos are encoded in Flash.
TIME Mobile also brings a new approach for browsing articles. Like Cover Flow view in the iPhone and iTunes, TIME Mobile's "Image Flow" provides some eye candy in front of the meat and potatoes of the article content.
One thing absent in the app is support for offline reading, a useful feature for situations where data connectivity is lacking, such as on an airplane. The USA Today app [iTunes link], which is in the same app genre as TIME Mobile, supports offline reading by tapping on the update button on each section. Perhaps such a feature could be added to TIME Mobile as a paid-for feature, or as for free to those who subscribe to the paper version of the magazine. Update: TIME's app team tells us that offline reading is built-in as part of the app, but for some reason I could not get it to work consistently; we're following up with them to figure out why it's wonky.
Powered by Polar, a mobile publishing provider that also powers BusinessWeek [iTunes link] and CNNMoney [iTunes link] iPhone apps as well as a host of other apps on a variety of mobile platforms, TIME Mobile is available as a free download in the App Store.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Charles R Hamilton said 7:58PM on 9-02-2009
Super. So instead of seeing Obama on every issue on the newstand, they can put him on my very own iPhone.
I'll pass.
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dantronic said 10:37PM on 9-02-2009
No one cares what you think of TIME!
Charles R Hamilton said 10:49PM on 9-02-2009
You know, you are right. Not even Time cares. As they bask in the glow of Obama, they have completely alienated a full 48% of the electorate. Then they (along with Newsweek, NYT etc etc) wonder why their circulation has plummeted. I don't care what side you are on, left or right. Just don't try to pass yourself as a legitimate news source, when in fact you are just a mouthpiece for the democrat party.
Michael Rose said 12:39AM on 9-03-2009
Charles, are you interested in going back and comparing cover ratios with President Bush during his years in office? You might be surprised. Or, you might just continue to imagine conspiracies. Hard to see why the President might be newsworthy, regardless of "alienating 48% of the electorate." You don't have to read TIME or like it, but your judgements on the magazine's coverage seem a little cranky.
For what it's worth, I worked with TIME quite a bit in the early 90s. There were journalists of every political leaning there, and some very cagey ones who kept their inclinations private. Regardless of their personal feelings, every single one of them was a professional and they reported the stories as best they could, without overt bias and with an eye towards the truth.
What newsmagazines do you read? Do they simply choose not to cover the White House? Must be interesting.
Charles R Hamilton said 6:23AM on 9-03-2009
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/12/17/1719779.aspx
Mike said 9:26AM on 9-03-2009
I agree, however you can extend that to all the other esteemed members of the global elite
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years."
"It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."
Todd Sieling said 8:10PM on 9-02-2009
I see apps like this as an industry begging for a tablet. Apple and the iTunes store are perfectly positioned to deliver subscription newspaper and magazine content, and a tablet is the right form factor for reading it on the go or at the kitchen table. And as a bonus it would bury the Kindle.
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seanbone said 9:15PM on 9-02-2009
@Atari.....you stole my thunder....couldn't agree w/ you more......that rag is nothing more than pics of obama....shameful what they've become!
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dantronic said 10:38PM on 9-02-2009
Ibid.
Nikax said 9:47PM on 9-02-2009
wow, the trolls have found TUAW...what a shame...
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str1f3 said 10:50PM on 9-02-2009
Maybe you can bring it up at the next birthers meeting!
John Hamilton Farr said 9:57PM on 9-02-2009
The only problem I can see here is that you're still reading TIME magazine, which I haven't been able to stand for years.
Fail!
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dantronic said 10:39PM on 9-02-2009
Ibid.
Krokadil said 11:21PM on 9-02-2009
Do moderators even exist anymore?
@fascists - "Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry."
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camkevbell said 4:03AM on 9-03-2009
It keeps disappearing from my iPod Touch. You could say I'm losing time?
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Posimotion said 10:19AM on 9-03-2009
Aside from the amount of trolls, I think it is amazing that Time is branching out into the iPhone market. We are all listening to a metric ton of audio books on the device; it is simply "x" amount of time before print media goes to this medium. Time sees this happening and is taking a pro-active step to save their future. Kudos time!
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