Adobe’s Updated Digital Publishing Suite Means More Magazines For The iPhone

When it comes to digital magazines, why should tablet owners have all the fun? That’s the sentiment Adobe was espousing earlier today at an event held in New York where they officially pulled back the curtains on their updated Digital Publishing Suite.

You’d be forgiven if you haven’t stumbled across Adobe’s DPS before — as the name sort of implies, it’s meant for publishers to prepare digital editions of their print content for consumption on all sorts of gadgetry. Given their size, tablets have been the obvious focus for content creators, but Adobe’s new update brings (among other things) the ability for them to whip up digital magazines that work well on the iPhone too.

One publisher has already signaled their commitment to tailoring their digital magazine experience to the iPhone — Conde Nast leans pretty heavily on Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite to layout their digital editions, and they revealed that an iPhone-friendly makeover for The New Yorker was in the works. Here’s hoping that some of Conde Nast’s other properties (my fingers are crossed for the exceptionally handsome Wired) get the same treatment, though the shift toward smaller screens will force designers to rethink how users read and engage with that content.

Even with the process for creating rich media content for smaller screens streamlined (Adobe offers up their own best practices here), it’s still no easy feat to devise a handsome, thoughtful way to dive into that content on a smaller screen. That lack of real estate means that publishers will have to get really creative in order to deliver the sort of experience that make digital magazines more compelling than their dead-plant counterparts.

[via Gizmodo]