Times Inc. Tablet Magazine

No wonder, Apple has delayed the Release of it’s tablet to late 2010, so our eyes shift towards the alternatives. Here comes a Digital magazine concept from Times Inc that promises to make print media a thing of the past.

Sports Illustrated has thrown their hat into the ring of media properties racing their content towards a tablet delivery system for the future. This is part of Time Inc.’s initiative, produced by Wonderfactory.

The tablet format is much easier on the eyes than reading the same story on the Web, and you get the added bonus of full-screen slide shows or videos. You can also flip through photos within the text, while continuing to read. Sports scores and other data can be dynamically updated from the Web, or you can share stories and photos via email, Facebook, or Twitter.

You can see how quickly the digital magazine lets you swipe through pages, videos and photo slides. When you tap on a page, a navigation wheel pops up with different sharing options and ways to call up additional information, live stats, photos, and videos.

It’s amazing how the digital magazine can embed entire photo slide shows where a single photo would normally be in a print magazine, as well as some of the other photo gallery options. Sports photos are still a huge reason people buy Sports Illustrated and go to its Website. McDonell says that some indicated they’d be willing to pay $50 more a year for the digital version, although the official pricing has not yet been determined.