iPad, therefore I shop

Over a million iPads have been sold worldwide since its launch in April, but content producers still have a lot of catching up to do. There’s only so many versions of Plants vs Zombies you (and by you I really mean “I”) can play, after all. Searching “fashion” in the iTunes Philippines store brings up but a few worthwhile apps, and it’s interesting to see how the early-adopting brands, websites and publications have made use of a medium that is virtually a blank slate and carte blanche for visionaries to go explore their creativity, and make a few bucks on the side.

Gucci

Gotta hand it to them for being one of the first retail brands to come up with a free app, which simply is a tightly edited collection of the website’s most interesting features, with a few enhanced extras. The spring/summer 2010 picks were blah, however, not because of the clothes but because the images look shockingly low-res. iPad exclusives include a cheesy beats-making game by Mark Ronson, providing about two minutes of amusement, and sneak peeks from the fall/winter fashion shows. Behind-the-scenes footage is always more fun to watch than the actual show, and the more backstage chaos the merrier. One of the videos documented Gucci’s five-year partnership with UNICEF, showing an emotional Frida Giannini embracing Malawi children in dusty classrooms. Apparently Gucci has been helping build schools and hospitals around Africa to the tune of $7 million. So the next time you hear the term “Gucci Gang,” think of them as humanitarians.

Shopping

The Gilt and Yoox apps are basically repackaged versions of the online stores. Both sell luxury brands, with Gilt being a members-only club that offers 36-hour sales on selected styles at up to 70 percent off retail, the Internet version of the New York private sample sale. Yoox on the other hand is a European-based site that has been around since 2000, and the fact that they’re still up and running says a lot about the success of shilling brands like Costume National and Roberto Cavalli on the web. I say look but don’t tap, unless you’re willing to spend up to $40 on international shipping costs. 

Magazines

The iPad was supposed to be the savior of the magazine industry. You know things are pretty bad when the venerable Newsweek is put up for sale. But wet blanket analysts have shown with figures and projections that even if iPad sales wildly exceed expectations and users end up buying a lot of magazine subscriptions, it still wouldn’t be enough to drive meaningful revenue. Still, the fact that I can stuff several issues into one device means no painful shoulders on plane rides, and I hope more publications come out with iPad versions soon.

Interview: Finally! I never bought this magazine here because it costs around P1,000 and is inconveniently oversized. At $2.99 per issue with all the articles plus exclusive video content, I think Andy Warhol’s rag may just find a new generation of fans. The format is pretty standard, with page flips and layouts exactly like what you’d see in print, but the images, which render stunningly on the iPad screen, remain clean with the captions hidden. And all the advertising is put away in one section (that’s 43 pages of ads!). Short of being able to sniff the page and tear it out, the tactile quality of handling magazines has sort of returned.

GQ: The app was quite disap-pointing because it just would not work on my iPad. It worked on the iPhone, however, but that’s the last place I’d like to read a magazine on, especially for this issue whose cover story on the Prince of Persia actor is titled “Jake is Huge.” On horizontal mode, the screen image is the unaltered magazine spread, on vertical mode, it switches to a text-only version of the article, a neat way of not interrupting the flow of reading. Early news reports stated that GQ sold a miserable 365 copies of its iPad/iPod/iPhone app, but just a few days ago this was proven incorrect, and that actually 57,000 copies have moved since December (by comparison, 900,000 print copies are circulated).

Now does this mean the iPad can save the magazine industry? Probably not, but it’s definitely saving the magazine reader.