As regular readers of Revert to Saved will know, I’m the games editor at the spiffy Tap! magazine, Future Publishing’s iOS monthly. Tap! is one of those magazines I’d happily buy every month if I wasn’t already writing for it, because it’s such a joy to read (a recent edition had a headphones round-up that contained two full belly-laughs—how many publications can you say that about?), but readers had wanted said joy on their iPads, and not using PDF-churn Zinio.

They’re in luck! Today sees the launch of the Tap! app. The app itself is free, and you can either grab single issues for £2.99/$4.99/€3.99 (a hefty saving on the newsstand price) or subscribe for three months, six months or a year.

The app itself goes beyond the mag in a few ways, such as in offering 360-degree views of kit, and short videos and walkthroughs of games (the debut has Jim McCauley showing how he got world-leading scores in the excellent Magnetic Billiards). But, for me, what’s more interesting about the Tap! app is that the in-house guys built the thing themselves.

Editor Christopher Phin has explained on Twitter and elsewhere that existing magazine solutions just didn’t feel right for what Tap! wanted to achieve. Instead, the team started from scratch. Rather than taking an off-the-shelf solution and smashing its magazine into it with a hammer, it started with a blank sheet of paper and a pen. Once the ideas and features were formulated, only then did the team start looking at software, and swiftly decided to build its own. Phin remarks:

This new publishing platform actually itself runs on an iPad, meaning we can take advantage of all the iPad’s features natively.

This means that, unlike many other app magazines on the iPad, Tap! isn’t just rendered JPEGs or PNGs for each page: the text is searchable and resizable. Also, those who make use of assistive tech can use VoiceOver.

I’m clearly not a neutral here—I write for Tap! and so I’ve a vested interest in the app’s success; however, I’d argue that because of the care that’s gone into its production, not least in its integration of assistive technology, it deserves to do well. I hope you agree.

Linky: Tap! magazine for iPad on the iTunes Store.

Gary Marshall for TechRadar:

I love my Kindle, and I love my iPad. I don’t love their processors, or their RAM, or their connectivity options, or any of the other guts. I love their simplicity, and that’s why I buy Kindles over other ebook readers and iPads over other tablets. Bezos – and by extension, Amazon – gets that, and the Kindle Fire clearly comes from that philosophy.

As long as other Android tablet manufacturers continue banging on about dual-core this and mucho-RAM that, Apple’s going to continue kicking their faces off with its size-nines; and now Amazon’s going to join in with its size-sevens.

Update: At the time I wrote this, the US site was showing a single price (at least in my browser), but it’s now split between a Kindle with special offers ($79) and one without ($109). The $109 model is the only one available for pre-order in the UK, and while £89 is still high as a conversion, it’s not too awful and is still a price-cut over the existing model.

I wrote about the new Kindles earlier. Amazon’s now put up some pricing and, well, it’s interesting. In the US, the cheapest Kindle sets you back $79. I assumed that would translate to 65 quid or so in the UK. Boy, was I wrong! The UK price is £89. That’s pretty outrageous, especially from a company usually intent on aggressive pricing, and it shows Amazon’s either lowballing in the US, to boost sales, or realising the UK can bear a much higher price.

Frankly, I’m shocked and a little disappointed. At £65, I’d have been all over a new Kindle. At £89, I can’t help feeling ripped off.

Note: I’m fully aware that one cannot do direct price conversions, and that’s something I bang on about a lot to other people. US prices lack tax. Also, exchange rates fluctuate. However, even taking the year low of $1.53 and knocking off 10 cents, you end up with 55 quid. Add UK VAT and you get £66. At the moment, Sterling’s trading at about $1.55.

Three new Kindles from Amazon!

Kindle. $79. More or less the current model, but 30 per cent lighter and minus a keyboard. This thing is going to fly off the shelves. It has an astonishing price-point that puts ebooks firmly within reach of far, far more people. It ditches the keyboard, which is fair enough, and it looks fab.

Kindle touch. $99 or $149 for 3G. Retains e-ink and nukes buttons; adds touch interface. An interesting move, given the price. I’m unsure if it’ll lead to purchase issues because of doubt over which model to pick (standard or touch), or whether it’ll be a straight upsell from the standard Kindle. I’m not sold on the touch interface for this kind of device: I like the Kindle buttons, and getting fingerprints all over the screen doesn’t seem like a great prospect. I’m just not sure this model is necessary in the line-up.

Kindle Fire. $199 7-inch Android-based tablet. This is initially going to sell like hot cakes. There’s no camera, mic or 3G, but you get Wi-Fi and 30 days of Amazon Prime (which in the UK seemingly means items being dispatched and lost by Royal Mail half the time anyway…) The question mark will be over usage. I do read on my iPad, which has a similar kind of display, but a standard Kindle’s e-ink is much better for long-form reading. But the Kindle Fire also has access to apps, games, movies and music. It’ll be interesting to see just how many buyers go for this (or if they go for this and a standard Kindle) and how it affects (if at all) the iPad, not least considering Amazon’s pretty dev-hostile app store.

Regarding Apple, I disagree with some tech pundits—there is a minor threat here. Amazon’s providing people with a much cheaper and potentially more than ‘good enough’ tablet option, for general media consumption. The iPad has brand awareness, a larger screen and a massive range of apps, but the Kindle Fire will eat up a lower end of the market, potentially snaring people who might later have bought an iPad, and who don’t care for or need advanced apps on a large screen. The real losers today, though, are every other manufacturer of 7-inch Android-based tablets. As of the Kindle Fire’s released, they are royally screwed.

Good grief, The Guardian. Last week, you reported:

Doctor Who has faced many fearsome foes in the past, but none of them have been a Bolton-born TV presenter who yells “Our survey says”.

This was on the back of the show’s plummeting audience share, which saw it beaten by All Star Family Fortunes, to which The Guardian suggested:

The current series of Doctor Who – the second overseen by showrunner Steven Moffat – has faced criticism that it is too scary and too complicated for younger fans.

To be fair, The Guardian isn’t alone. Lots of publications are saying Doctor Who is screwed, largely because Moffat has the audacity to create plots that make you think a bit, that hold up brilliantly to rewatching (so you can figure out what you missed), and that have an intelligence and horror that was largely lacking in the (still pretty good) Russell T Davies era.

Only it’s not quite that simple. Tom Spilsbury reports that ratings are far more complicated than they used to be, and Who performs extremely well on the BBC Three repeat, recordings and iPlayer. The linked post shows that the current series is up on the first three series, and down only slightly on the 2008 run. Spilsbury says the following on this (WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SERIES FOUR):

This can partially be put down to the final half of the series which concluded with Journey’s End, the return of Rose, the return of Davros, the fake regeneration, etc. Journey’s End was the top rated show of the week, and amassed almost 15 million viewers across all outlets, so this really gave a boost to the series average.

So what does The Guardian run with this week? Doctor Who’s mixed fortunes continue, which at least notes that the statistical reversal of All Star Family Fortunes ‘winning’ the ratings war again will be “shortlived”. So, not really mixed fortunes at all then, unless you consider it to be ‘mixed fortunes’ when your favourite football team goes to half-time a goal down, but then ends up winning two-one.