On Monday 10 October, Adobe updated the Viewer Builder app used in the Digital Publishing Suite workflow for Pro and Enterprise subscribers. The notable aspect of the update is that Viewers with iTunes Subscriptions can now also take advantage of Apple’s Newsstand feature on iPad.
The critical aspect of a Newsstand app is that this content will appear in a somewhat exclusive location. Instead of having a custom app fighting for attention with every other app in the App Store, your Newsstand content will appear in a bookcase or equivalent with only other periodic content. Your magazine or publication will exist with its brethren, isolated from too many apps for taking pictures, finding baby names, or other dissimilar apps. As a publisher, this is great!
The new Viewer Builder 1.5.1 supports Newsstand classifications for “Magazine” and “Newspaper,” offers a choice of a “binding” edge to control where update notifications appear, and you can supply a default cover graphic. Any Pro or Enterprise publisher wanting to use Newsstand will need to rebuild their app using Viewer Builder 1.5.1 and resubmit the updated app to the App Store. I’ve posted a YouTube video showing the new feature, find it at:
Digital Publishing Suite: Newsstand for iOS5
As a reader, apparently it’s recommended that, for the best experience, you should update to iOS5 before updating your publication apps to the Newsstand version. Doing the updates in this order will apparently streamline your experience and help transition the content you already have more smoothly. If you update in a different order, you may face having to re-download content if you update your iOS after updating your readers.
Colin
