iPad 2: Not Quite the Magazine Experience

Engadget published a first hands-on about the iPad 2 and what piqued my interest was this:

“The design feels great in your hands. Sleek, super thin — much nicer to hold than the previous version. Definitely has more of a magazine than book feel. Everything is tight and solid. It is pretty amazing how thin they’ve gotten the device.”

I’m an avid magazine reader and if the new iPad 2 has more of a magazine than book feel like they said, I’d be very happy with the iPad 2. However, I’m still reluctant because the magazine experience I think is still better with the print copy than a digital copy on an iPad. I will have to spend more time using an iPad 2 to read magazines, but from my experiences so far with the original iPad (which has the same form factor anyway), I would rather stick to traditional print magazines. The biggest issue is that the iPad 2 is basically only half the size of an open magazine. You can’t look at the iPad as a 2-page spread, but rather as a single page. On an iPad it’s hard to read an article and quickly glance at the pictures like you can with a print magazine because you have to zoom in to read the article. You almost need to have 2 iPads with a spine. And I don’t see that happening with future generations of the iPad or with other tablets in general. Steve Jobs joked how 2011 is the Year of the Copycats. And he’s right. What a shame. Unfortunately, Microsoft cancelled their Courier concept which I think could’ve been a great competitor to the iPad. It could’ve been a great alternative as it would meet the needs of different users. But like everyone else, they’re instead probably going to try to copy Apple’s iPad if they eventually try to join the tablet wars.

The cancelled Microsoft Courier Tablet concept. Picture courtesy of Engadget:
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Business Idea: iPad Magazine Rack

Back in December, I wrote about a Magazine Store. And just yesterday Apple introduced it’s newest creation, the iPad. The hype leading up to it was that Apple would revolutionize printed media like books and magazines. So far the vision is there, but it is blurry at best and may take some time to develop. So far Apple has created an iBooks store for books to be added to the iPad, but nothing has been said yet about magazines (and comic books). But it’ll probably eventually happen. If it does, how great would it be if my magazine store had iPads instead of magazines? Well ClarkeHopkinsClarke visualized a wall full of iPads and I think this would be an excellent idea for my store! Their main vision was for the iPads to be like a replacement for mosaic tiles on an interior wall, but they also mention them as a great “life sized digital bookcase.” In this way, it would be a great display for my store. It’d be where the visitors to my store would pick up their iPad magazines to browse. Oh well just another idea floating around for now. 🙂

Business Idea: Magazine Rack Store

I love magazines. Always have, always will. If I could, I would dedicate a whole room in my house to collect magazines. When I was in college at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, I used to love going to a place called Joe Muggs’ Newsstand, shown below.

All the store had was coffee and magazines. I’m not sure what happened, but this past year when I visited Atlanta it wasn’t there anymore. Joe Muggs itself is owned by Books A Million and their website says that they still own Joe Muggs Newsstands with an “exhaustive newsstand selection of magazines, newspapers and best sellers.” But on google maps it looks like nothing has taken its place yet. So although it seems that this place eventually went out of business (not sure how long it stayed in business, but it lasted at least the 4 years I was in college) I would’ve loved to have opened up a business exactly like it.

But now that time is past because the printed magazine will soon be dead. The future will be electronic media. Ebook readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Nobles’ Nook are available now. And there are many rumors swirling around about Apple creating a tablet device in 2010 that could be used for consuming books and magazines. However, the best interpretation of an electronic magazine reader is the Mag+ by Berg. It looks pretty awesome to me. I hope they come out with it soon!

Check out the Mag+ Video from Bonnier on Vimeo.

So what do you think? A store that stocks a whole load of Mag+ for people to read and buy, coffee to sip on, and Macbooks or iMacs to use?

Business Idea: DIY Garage

Pictured below is my garage. It is a typically sized 1.5 car residential garage with just enough room for me to work on my Corrado and the other cars I’ve owned. Like many of the people I know, I like to do my own work on my cars. In hindsight I know it would’ve been nice if I had a lift, tools, and some help when I worked on my car! Hence my idea…

My biggest and most ambitious business idea is a Do It Yourself Garage. “Garage Time” as I think I would call it. It would be a professional style garage where a customer rents time to work on his or her own car using the lift and the professional and specialty tools that are made available. Plus there would be a mechanic on site to supervise and offer tips and help where it is needed. Kinda like the autoshop class some of you have probably taken in high school.

Some of the people who would benefit from my business include car guys who would rather work on their own cars but don’t always have the right tools to do the jobs (like me), people who live in condos or apartments that do not allow them to work on their own cars, and people who want to learn how to fix their own cars. It can also be a meeting place for car clubs to meet and have a tech day.

Although I’ve done just about all the work on my cars, look at my toolbox. As you can see it is pretty empty. I would be a good candidate to go to my own business!

  
Well, the truth is I have tools that I don’t keep in my toolbox. But you get the idea 🙂

So what do you think? Would you want to be one of my customers?