The Wrap Reviews Print Apps for iPad

As predicted, more print magazines and newspapers are releasing iPad apps. How good are they?

Lew Harris, managing editor of The Wrap, has tested a batch of them, in a roundup review: Print Apps for iPad: What Works, What Doesn't. He says the results so far are "pretty encouraging."

Harris brings to the task the eyes and sensibility of a guy who's been a veteran of both print magazines (Los Angeles, People, Us) and Web-only publications (E! Online, Movies.com).

"The monthlies are doing a far better job of it than the dailies, for obvious reasons – they have the time to invest. And for the most part, they not only look damn good, but some are taking full advantage of the interactive possibilities.

Cleverly, most of the apps are free -- but downloading individual issues costs $3-5 (about the same as their newsstand price, but more expensive than a print subscription -- neither of which includes multimedia features such as video).

Harris walks us through all the tapping and swiping, and provides brief reviews of the top ten, which he ranks in order of best to least impressive:

* Men's Health
* Wired
* Vanity Fair
* GQ
* Popular Science
* Time Magazine
* USA Today
* New York Times
* Wall Street Journal
* The Nation

Which iPad apps have you downloaded and used? Please share your experience and thoughts in the comments section below, or on KobreGuide's Facebook Group discussion forum.

Video Series: Can Investigative Journalism Survive?

This weekend, TheNation.com launched an 8-week series of interviews with journalists and media insiders on the future of journalism. Focus: What will the media look like in 5, 10, or 15 years? Can investigative journalism survive? The Nation's John Nichols leads off, followed by Nick Penniman (Huffington Post Investigative Fund), Ana Marie Cox (Air America and MSNBC), Dan Rather, Jane Mayer, Mark Luckie (10000words.net) and Victor Navasky.

Nichols speaks about the disconnect between old media models and a nonfunctional new media model for producing journalism. He evokes history in noting that when our country was founded media was heavily subsidized by the government and proposes this as a model to strive for. Nichols is the co-author of Saving Journalism: The Soul of Democracy (New Press), which will be published this fall.