When we first heard that The Economist was launching a magazine app for the Apple Watch, we had to laugh, picturing an airport lounge full of people reading one word at a time on their tiny wristlets.
Fortunately, that’s not what the app is all about.
“The Economist — a dense, erudite weekly magazine based in London — is opening up shop on Apple Watch, where subscribers to the magazine’s digital edition will be able to listen to Economist articles,” notes Michael Sebastian in Ad Age.
According to the publisher, “Subscribers to The Economist app will be able to control playback of the audio edition using the newly launched Apple Watch. These functions include the ability to play, pause, skip ahead to the next track, rewind for 15 seconds, modify playback speed, and change to a different weekly edition.”
The Economist joins other publishers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal who are developing content for the Apple Watch. While we’d stop shorting of calling it a magazine, it does offer an intriguing use of the tiny new platform for sharing content, and a good way to continue to engage the magazine readership.
Hopefully Morgan Freeman will read the articles to us.