Magazines Coming To Android

As I am sure most tablet owners are aware of it would be how Apple has been attracting publishers of various magazines over to their tablet, offering users a chance to subscribe to their favorite magazines and read it right off their iPad device, and not only magazines but newspapers too.

Well Android users it looks like you may be able to start enjoying the same magazines that iPad users have been enjoying, thanks to “Next Issue Media” which is a joint ventre made up of various firms, most notably Hearst, Meredith, Time, and Condé Nast. Together they’ve created an Android app that allows readers to enjoy Esquire, Popular Mechanics, Fortune, Time, and The New Yorker on their tablet and their goal is to have more than 40 magazines available for their Android customers.

Apart from Android users, those publishers should also be rejoicing because unlike Apple, they will not have to give Android a 30% cut from their subscriptions. The cut right now for Android subscriptions is still unknown but during Google’s I/O there was a mention of a flat 5% fee although that might not apply to subscriptions, but rather for apps instead.

It’s not all good news as the only Android device to support Next Issue Media’s application is the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Not the 10.1 10-inch version but rather the 7-inch version which isn’t even running on Android’s Honeycomb operating system and it seems that only Verizon’s Galaxy Tab will be supported. Of course all of this is new and we expect things to change as it progresses but right now we can’t say we’re too excited about it.