People Magazine iPad app to be free to print magazine subscribers

One more thing about that iPad People Magazine app, the one that has reportedly been the target of a paparazzi controversy: it’s going to be the first ever iPad translation of a print magazine that is going to be free to subscribers of the print magazine. Ad Age reports that the wrangling with Apple over implementing this offer was the real reason the app has been delayed, not the photographer dispute.

In other words, a “subscription” to the app will literally cost exactly the same as a subscription to the print magazine—putting it one up on those other magazines that cost same as cover price, with no possibility of a subscription yet (though in the case of Sports Illustrated, it’s not as if they haven’t wanted to).

This seems like such a sensible plan, using the iPad version to promote sales of the print magazine—after all, if you want to pay to subscribe, you’ll get both anyway—that it’s a wonder other magazines haven’t thought of it, too. (Or perhaps they have, and People is just the first one to get Apple to agree to it.) It does seem to be a handy way around Apple’s apparent prohibition on external subscription mechanisms. I wonder if other would-be subscribable appmags such as Sports Illustrated will follow suit?