BiS Open Source iPad Magazine Platform

An Open Source iPad Magazine Publishing Platform for designers who hate programming

In 2011, me and my visual designer friend, started working on an iPad Magazine project. (Scroll down for more info and videos of the magazine) We didn’t want to use Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite, and pay hundreds of dollars to a 3rd party company just to publish it. While we were working on the magazine, I noticed that he hated it when I spoke computer language/code, and I realized what exactly makes Adobe so successful in their business. Visual designers don’t like coding. So I decided to design my own publishing platform. After spending two weeks with my visual designer friend, I created a new platform for digital publishing. It’s not the first, nor the best. However I created a platform for my friend, and for visual designers like him.

Here’s how it works :

1. The designer, uses the “designer’s/editor’s app”. It’s basically an app which organizes the content in a designer-friendly way, and creates a special XML file.
2. The designer/or the webmaster, uploads the XML, all images, videos, and content to their webpage.
3. Reader downloads the “reader’s app” from iTunes App Store for free. It’s basically a mini-mag-store for this platform.
4. Finally, reader picks a magazine from the store, and starts reading.

The Designer’s App

I’ve tried my best to design the simplest app that’ll do the job, so that anyone who’s familiar with the basic visual design concepts, can design a magazine. The app has a Live iPad Preview window, and a design tools window. All you have to do is to drag-and-drop images into image-boxes, and the app does the rest. After saving the XML files, all you have to do is to upload them to your server. Later, the app registers the magazine to the main lobby on my server, and the magazine takes it’s place in the mini-magazine-store, ready to be downloaded by the reader.

The Reader’s App

The reader’s app is a mini-magazine-store. After finishing the app, I found out that the technical process of publishing an app to iTunes App Store, is also really hard for a visual designer. I had two options,

1. To open the app’s source code and let the designer compile, and publish to apple (and the designer still had to pay apple a yearly fee)
2. Create a reader app, which acts like a lobby, so that no designer has to compile the reader again.

I chose the second option. So all the designer has to do is to design the magazine, and the app/cloud does the rest.

Platform Features

• Left, Right, Center positioning
• Fixed background (including scrollable text over still background – using iScroll (c) 2010 Matteo Spinelli)
• Margins and Columns
• Custom Links to internal or external pages
• Audio & Video Support
• Swipes, Taps and Double Taps (opens the index page)
• Video Cover Page

These are the main features. There are many more to come, and I’ll improve the project as I have free time.

I’m still working on the documentation, I’ll upload the XCode files with examples page soon.

– HERE ARE TWO EXAMPLE MAGAZINE VIDEOS  –

so you can see how it looks like once it’s published.

BIS : An iPad Magazine for Music Lovers

BIS is an iPad Magazine for Music & Concert lovers. Almost every magazine on the market features studio albums, and personally I love concerts more. With BIS, I changed the standardized magazine approach to Music, and I featured concerts, more than albums. My goal is to change the way we ‘read’ music. I don’t like ‘reading’ albums! In my opinion, reading articles about music is no different than a blind-born person talking about paintings. To fully understand what’s written on the page, to understand the artist, we need to ‘hear’ the album.

• In BIS, if there is an article about an album, you can ‘hear’ the album.
• If there is an article about an artist, you can watch their music videos, concerts, listen to their albums, check their photos, tour dates, and even buy tickets for their local show.
• If there is an article about a concert, you can watch the concert, see photos of the concert, and if available, see photos from different photographers.
• BIS is like the biggest festival in the country, bringing different musicians together. BIS features different genres and styles.

To me BIS is more than just a simple magazine. It brings artists’ webpages, concerts, albums, photos and sharing their music to your iPad.

Bis (Latin) : Encore : *a repeated or additional performance of an item at the end of a concert, as called for by an audience.