Hi, sorry if this has been asked before.

Is there/ are there any plans for the mag to be available on the Kindle? Having recently enjoyed Mike's book on the Kindle, I just thought a b+w version of the mag available for download might be an attractive thing for ppl.


Cheers

Jim

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Take It Easy

Hi Jim

I asked the same question a few months ago, but no worries...

... at that time Jennifer responded that it was something that was under consideration, but that there were other things to address first. But maybe one of t'management will be able to give us the current situation.

'S my birthday in October and the only thing on the list was a Kindle 3G. However, after yesterday's announcement about the new Kindle tablet I think I'll mark-time until I find out a bit more about that. No UK availability date yet, of course.

I don't know the current status of this idea, but I believe it is under consideration. Higher priority is to get the ipad version (and related systems) done, which I believe is very close now.

Not only is there a need to construct suitable apps and interfaces for each end-user device format, but the physical re-versioning for each format for every issue is non-trivial too, and relies heavily on a very flexible content management system.

So the first stage we've had to go through was renewing our CMS and putting all the procedures in place, while at the same time designing and bug-fixing the interfaces, and then start generating and fine-tuning the content.

All of this swallows up huge amounts of cash, time and staff effort, all of which are inherently in short supply to such a small company as SOS. I think few people realise quite how compact this company really is because our magazine compares so strongly to the competition from the likes of, say, the huge Future empire.

So yes, it's frustrating for all of us that it takes a while to progress these kinds of projects. But we are getting there and the final results will be very good. Hang in there!

Hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

It's also worth me pointing out that Kindle has very little support for image-heavy and table-based designs - it's primarily been designed as a text reader, although does support some b+w images.

To this end, we would never be able to produce a "b+w version of the mag" as the mag is heavily reliant on images, and would not work in a Kindle format. What we'd have to do is use the online article format, stripping out any Kindle-breaking code (such as tables!), and including some pictures, however they wouldn't necessarily appear in the same places due to layout constrictions.

Additionally... (this might be a bit technical) the online articles are coded in one scripting language whereas the Kindle has specific requirements on the coding of files. This means we'd have to adapt all our existing online articles just to make them Kindle-friendly (and we have a substantial archive), as well as adding an extra-step in the article-creation process. As you can imagine, producing the mag, a digital edition, an iPad version, an online article, and then a Kindle-adapted online article is a LOT of work!

As Hugh says, we are a very small company, and have to take small steps with these things because they are significant steps for us to take! We do appreciate the interest and feedback, however, and always take readers' comments into consideration. Thanks for your patience

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SOS Web Editor, Support & Social Media
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The Kindle Fire supports color images. I'd love to read SOS in my Kindle Fire.