No, the VPN works fine with absolutely everything. Except the YouTube app. How does that make the VPN configuration the work of an idiot? (The fact it is the work of an idiot is being ignored here. )

Shouldn't you be using edufail *cough* I mean eduroam and using 802.1x?

Yes, but eduw*nk sucks. Much prefer Tsunami + VPN. Especially since the stupid buggers at IS mean I'm limited to registering 4 MAC addresses... Evil wench behind the tech desk up in Hugh Owen gave me so many evils last year when I turned up to register my fifth, sixth, seventh MACs, etc. I think I ended up with about 12 registered.

It would be quite interesting to see an iPad subscription comic. Turning an eBook reader into an eComic reader with full-size, full colour pages.

I am not a comic reader but I have read a fair few graphic novels and several manga books. In fact, I think a colour manga ebook service would be good also. Maybe one you could switch between languages. i.e. read it in Japanese and when you get stuck you can switch to English.

So long as the subscriptions were priced quite a bit below the print editions, they could be onto a winner no matter what. The issue comes with some people wanting to 'own' the comic though, whether that's to be able to keep for traditional reasons, or just to sell later.

I like your thoughts on extra content/services, and I think that's something they'd definitely have to introduce to keep people interested in the long term - I think many people have their doubts about e-subscriptions of any kind...

I love the idea of subscription Manga and GN, especially if it had more colour and the extra features such as language switching and maybe comments and notes from the authors, and the occasional free animation and other "subscriber only" goodies. Done well, it could be a lot like a fan club and could be profitable.

But the price has to be right. It has to be low. I'd consider maybe £5 a month if that covered several good quality publications - say 100 pages or so. I imagine a lot of younger readers would struggle with even that much, although it would be a great gift.

I use the Comixology app. on my iPhone.

Titles seem to be between 60p and £1.30 for the most part. For each title there is a "buy printed version" button. It seem that lots of people DO buy the printed version if they enjoy the digital version first.

This is a very young market, so it will be interesting to see how it develops.

p.s. There is a lot of free content too. So far I have just enjoyed that. Atomic Robo FTW

There's already an app for the Sony PSP that lets you buy digital versions of some of the major comic brands (Marvel included). Prices for the digital version seem pretty much what you'll pay for the paper versions...

Jon

Maybe not even a subscription service but an in App purchase model.

Nothing to stop both models being used.

I wouldn't subscribe to a music service, but I might for comics. I don't re-read them often at all, so I'd have less of an issue with not actually owning them.

However, if they were priced similarly to hard copies then I simply wouldn't bother. Comics are wonderful things to have and hold, in much the same way I'd rather own a CD if it wasn't much more than the download.

CC; 60p per title sounds like a good price if the printed versions are usually about £3. Comixology is now on my "to investigate further" list

Comixology

And a demo on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDZsKhBbAlo


CC

An interesting device makes it's way to market.
http://www.airstash.com/

Mark

I'd prefer internal storage, then I may be interested as a pocket storage device.

I suspect other similar devices won't be far away.

Mark

One company doing it right - Imagine publishing have iPod apps for all their magazines. Basically the app is a 'shell' which allows you to buy or subscribe the magazine via in app purchasing. You get one mag free with the purchase of the app (each one costs about £1.20) and then each further edition you buy in the app is half the price of the newsstand paper version. Plus the image quality is really good. Aside from being a little bit slow - and probably a lot quicker on a '3GS' generation device or an iPad - it's a very usable system and I think it's the model other publishers should seriously be going for. ideally there'd be one app for all the mags rather than one for each but I can see why they want to differentiate.

The best bit? The makers of the app have a post on their support forum which states that they are doing an iPad version, it will be a free download if you've got the iphone version of any given app already and you'll be able to carry over all your purchased magazines to the iPad version of the app. Round of applause, I think.