Here’s a good sign for NewsStand, a feature Apple introduced with iOS 5: publisher Condé Nast saw a significant increase in both digital subscriptions and single copy sales since the launch of Newsstand. Now let’s see Newsstand on the Mac.
iOS 5 organizes your magazine and newspaper app subscriptions in Newsstand: a folder that lets you access your favorite publications. It also offers a place on the App Store just for newspaper and magazine subscriptions.
You can get to it straight from Newsstand. New purchases go directly to your Newsstand folder. Then, as new issues become available, Newsstand automatically updates them in the background — complete with the latest covers.
Monica Ray, Condé Nast’s executive vice president consumer marketing, says i the two weeks since Newsstand was introduced, new subscription sales, per week, across all nine digital editions, rose 268%, with single copy sales up 142% compared to the previous eight weeks.
“We couldn’t be happier,” she says. “It’s clear that the focused attention and greater discoverability Newsstand provides our brands has been embraced by the consumer. While we recognize the spike in sales is in part fueled by the attention the launch received, we are very optimistic that we will see a consistently higher level of growth going forward than we did prior to the app’s introduction.”
To date, there are nine digital editions of Condé Nast publications available on the iPad: Allure, Brides Glamour, Self, GQ, Golf Digest, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired. Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit, and Vogue will launch between now and early 2012.
Apple says Newsstand is kind of like having the paper delivered to your front door. But I can read the print edition of the morning paper at the kitchen table, in my home office, in the bedroom, etc. So I want to be able to read the digital editions of my favorite newspapers and magazines on my iPad, iPhone or my Mac.
So, c’mon, Apple implement Newsstand on the Mac. And let me sync my digital subscriptions/publications across all my Mac OS X and iOS devices using iCloud just as I can photos with PhotoStream.
— Dennis Sellers