This week’s “People” app is the first to be free to subscribers, and “Time,” Sports Illustrated” and “Fortune” are expected to follow, according to a “Fortune” article (http://macosg.me/2/qx). And it “signals the end of a four-and-a-half-month impasse that put the digital dreams of every major magazine publisher on hold,” the article adds.

Until now, the iPad versions of these mags have cost the same as the newsstand price — US$3.99 for each issue of People, $4.99 to $5.99 each for the rest — even if you were are already paying to get the paper edition in the mail. Now the “People” app is free to People subscribers, and the rest of Time Inc.’s flagship magazines are expected to adopt the same pricing structure within the next 30 days.

“Now that Apple has made it possible, other magazine publishers will presumably follow suit,” says “Fortune.” “Now that Apple has made it possible, other magazine publishers will presumably follow suit. It’s not clear what took so long. Publishers who were encouraged to build iPad apps by Steve Jobs himself say were ready from the start to make them free to subscribers. Until now, however, Apple would neither give them the tools they needed, nor explain what was holding them up. The publishers still can’t sell subscriptions through the App Store, which is how they would prefer to do it.”

And I’d love to be able to subscribe to digital versions of my mags on the iPad.