Issuu Mobile review

Thanks to the inevitable onslaught of technological progress the traditional printed word is very much at risk these days. Magazine sales are down and gadgets such as Apple’s recently-announced iPad and Amazon’s popular Kindle are changing the way in which we receive the books, magazines and newspapers we read.

Mobile phones are also getting in on the act, and there have been several “eReader” apps already on Android. Issuu is unquestionably one of the best, but it doesn’t quite manage to kick good old-fashioned papyrus onto the scrap heap just yet.

Issuu Mobile allows you to read thousands of different magazines all from the comfort of your Android device. The design of the app is refreshingly professional, with a clean menu system and intuitive navigation. However, aesthetics aside, the big difference between Issuu and other eReaders is the manner in which it allows you to peruse the text on the page.

Using “EasyRead” technology, Issuu intelligently scans each page for blocks of text and instantly replicates the words in a format which is more suited to the rather limited confines of a mobile phone screen. To do this all you have to do is select a block of text with your finger and Issuu will then process it. It even divides the text into separate pages which you can flick through as you would an eBook.

This dual-method approach means you can appreciate the layout and design of each magazine but also have access to the text without having to zoom in all the time. It’s not a totally perfect system – sometimes the app becomes befuddled and fails to recognise certain blocks of words, but for the most part it operates impressively.

What’s rather less striking is the range of content currently on offer. Most of the magazines are low-scale affairs - produced for the online market – rather than famous names. You won’t find the latest issue of Empire or Loaded on here, but to be honest you wouldn’t really expect to – the publishers of those magazines are hardly going to offer up their hard work for free when the printed version costs a few quid.

Issuu is a talented piece of software – it can even view standards PDFs – and the range of options is brilliant. You can subscribe to a magazine so you never miss an issue, or you can recommend it to a friend via the email-based “share” feature. In fact, in terms of functionality this is definitely one of the best eReaders we’ve ever experienced.

The stumbling block remains the content itself; if the guys behind Issuu can attract some bigger names then its allure will obviously increase. The key issue is that getting those big names on board is going to be hard when you’re giving the app away for free. Publishers know that the digital revolution is undermining their profits and they’re hardly going to allow Issuu to hand out magazines without paying a substantial fee for the privilege.

This version of Issuu is in Beta at the moment and chances are the next iteration will have to be a premium app in order to give the developers the funds needed to attract more popular magazines. In the meantime, it’s worth a look, but don’t expect it to replace your traditional glossy publications.