Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated iPad Editions Now Free For Subscribers

Apple has just made a deal with Time, Inc., the largest US magazine publisher, giving free access to its iPad editions to dead-tree subscribers. What kind of backwards world is this?

Well, it’s good news for subscribers if they don’t mind dealing with all that paper.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt at FORTUNE:

Thanks to the special Senior Citizen Offer I received in the mail last week, I can read Time Magazine… for $0.283 an issue on a free iPad app, down from the $4.99 Time Inc. was charging me the day before.

The magazine business must be scared because they are subsidizing issues, such as at WIRED. They also seem to be having issues with adoption on the iPad because of the expense of a dual-distribution (paper/digital) business model.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is trying to save his dying business :

Mr. Bewkes and other executives have argued the scattering of audiences to digital platforms has put magazines on equal footing with TV networks and movie studios. Time Warner views the “TV everywhere” approach, giving paying subscribers access to content across platforms, as the model for magazines, too.

If you subscribe to the dead-tree version, take advantage of your free iPad edition now. Otherwise, it’s 5 bucks an issue.

TIME

Sports Illustrated

FORTUNE

[via The Wall Street Journal]

James Britton

James first bit into Apple when his mom and dad bought an Apple IIe in 1986. He switched to Wintel in the mid 90s when Apple was in a tailspin and back again to an iBook in 2005 when things were looking brighter. Hopefully there is no turning back to the dark side now.