Great Art Takes Time...Download Time

Nick Bilton of the New York Times recently did an experiment; he purchased a digital copy of WIRED on his iPad. While the magazine was downloading, he drove twelve blocks to his neighborhood magazine shop (Brooklyn), bought a paper copy of the same magazine, and drove home. The iPad version was still downloading.

I know, I know, you're shocked.

Probably my favorite bit in the post is this right here…

“A spokeswoman from Condé Nast said executives with knowledge of other future magazine file sizes could be not reached for comment.”

The executive that Bilton probably should have contacted is Scott Dadich. Dadich heads up app development and e-reader integration at Condé Nast and WIRED. You can check out his Facebook page here. It’s full of great art shots of him hanging with celebrities and looking generally fabulous so, needless to say, I hate this guy. It is therefore with some reluctance that I suggest to you that Dadich should be forgiven for the slow, slow download speed. Here’s why.

Like everybody in this business that still publishes a print magazine, Dadich is reliant on Adobe and its InDesign program to lay pictures on pages and wrap text around pictures. He then uses a bundler program--of the type discussed here, but perhaps not that specific one--to help with file size and conversion. Dadich even pursued a special agreement with Adobe to create a digital version of the magazine for the iPad and did it before the iPad was launched.

That shows foresight but it's also the genesis of the problem. Adobe software running even on great big desktop Macs is suboptimal. Adobe and Mac relate to one another like the U.S. and China. Their various reps are always going out of their way to reassure the world that they don’t hate each other… because they hate each other. Apple is closed, autocratic, and exercises top-down control. But you can’t argue with their results. Adobe is open, messy, fun and falling behind. (Yes, I basically reduced the closed-platform open-platform issue to a metaphor for democracy.) They also need one another, but not equally. There’s a reason Steve Jobs doesn’t want Flash on his devices. He thinks Flash is “PC-era.” He’s not a big fan of desktop publishing in general, or of people making their own content, unless he gets a 30% cut in the iPad store.

The second problem actually is Dadich, but it’s not a failing or an oversight. He has a shelf of design awards; he’s one of the most celebrated magazine creative executives in the industry. Why? He loves design and big art and big features. I’ve never actually spoken to the man. I’ve seen him around at conferences and read a couple of profiles. Here’s the sense I get; he’s a geek but he’s not a computer geek. He’s an art geek who learned about computers and then about desktop publishing and then about mobile e-readers in order to be a better art geek.

"I'm happiest when I'm creating," he told the Observer in this online profile that showcases his art school roots.

The thing about great art, great photos, and interactive features is that they take up a lot of file space. Say what you want about Adobe Create Suite, it supports huge files and layout elements better than any other desktop design software package and that’s why Dadich went with Adobe. So why does it take so long to download the WIRED iPad app? Because of Scott Dadich’s artistic integrity. I gotta respect that.

We at THE FUTURIST took a different route. We publish PDF versions of all our articles but we also publish them in plain text. We were cautious about creating an app. The recent sales drop off in magazine apps suggests that caution was well-founded. We won’t win any design awards for what you see on our pages or our Web site, but at least you’ll be able to read our stuff.

Thanks for doing that, by the way.