Monday, March 22, 2010

Five Osprey Apps - Military History on the iPhone

Exact Editions and Osprey Publishing announced the launch of an initial group of apps for the iPhone/iPad market today. There is a full press release here.

Free samples of the books are available through iTunes from these icons

Philippi 42 BC:






The First Crusade:






Warsaw 1944:





Fredericksburg 1862:





Iwo Jima 1945:






These apps illustrate a couple of important points for publishers who are considering the iPhone/iPad market.

  1. The Osprey Campaign books are richly illustrated book and they show why an 'app' approach is much more natural and scaleable for highly illustrated works. The quality of the illustrations, the battle plans, and maps goes to the heart of the value that Osprey offer its readers. An eBook of the same resource would miss much of the value if it ignored the illustrations (cf yesterday's blog about books as apps)
  2. The iPhone gives the publisher an excellent forum in which to showcase richly illustrated books. So the 'freemium' offering which Exact Editions will now offer as the standard way of presenting books and magazines on the iPhone, should be thought of as a way of promoting and sampling the quality of the book to an audience which initially will not have to pay a cent. The Osprey titles have about 8% of their content available through the free sample.














































































































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