This is why we can’t have nice things
I yesterday wrote about Tap! magazine, largely about the editor’s belief that you can’t just review iOS apps in a few minutes. However, he also showed off the accelerometer-aware cover. Sure enough, one of the commenters got all angry about this:
It’s “accelerometer aware”…. who actually gives a **** about this? It “organically appears” … please, just show the damn content! What a bunch of pretentious bollocks.
One of the best things about Tap! is the manner in which the team has experimented with a new medium. Sure, you don’t need to have an accelerometer-aware cover. Similarly, last issue, the in-house guys didn’t need to animate my Plants vs. Zombies How To Win feature and Graham Barlow’s cover feature on apps and games for kids. But these things are nice-to-haves (similar to—although not identical to—layout flourishes in print magazines that go beyond pure readability), and Chris Phin in the video comes across like a proud craftsman, showing off his team’s work, the result of their trying new things and experimenting with a nascent medium.
Sure, the video could have just flipped through every page, which would have been boring as hell, much in the same way Tap! could have reformatted itself as ‘Instapaper with pictures’, which wouldn’t have been nearly as appealing as a magazine that begs to be interacted with and that’s trying to do something new rather than remain rooted in the past of magazines and newspapers.
I can’t wait until the Internet and websites goes back to being black Times New Roman on white, because who *NEEDS* other text styles? Or background images?
Heh—exactly! Note that I’m certainly not against Instapaper—I use it a lot. But I sure as hell don’t want an entire magazine presented in that bland text-only linear manner. I want entertainment and fun. Magazines should be about more than just firing information into your eyes.
Flashy presentation is good as long as it enhances the content and doesn’t make it harder and/or slower to find the information you want. I haven’t seen what the “accelerometer-aware” cover did so can’t comment on that, but in general if an animation is only there to look pretty rather than because it makes sense to present info that way, it will annoy people (see also splash screens on the web).
@Rob: In Tap! for iPad, the covers are typically animated or interactive, to try to be more engaging. In-article animation is usually subtle but can add character. In the PvZ piece, for example, they got a bunch of art from PopCap and had the plants/zombies blinking/moving a bit. With the apps for kids feature, things like trains moved as you scrolled between sections.