Sad news.

The Magazine was an interesting publication. A paid-for collection of long-form articles, with a simple content-first idea: putting the writers first, so that they could publish great content.

I'm guessing that you probably haven't heard of it. And I'm guessing thats a bit part of the reason why it has shut down.

Jim Dalrymple (publisher of The Loop website, and its sister Apple Newsstand publication The Loop Magazine) had this to say;

I understand the issues of being an independent publisher on Apple’s Newsstand—it’s not fun. Apple should just admit that they don’t give a shit about digital magazines and be done with it.

Maybe its just that the idea of tablet publishing is going through a trough of disillusionment. But I imagine that in a parallel world, where it got picked up by someone with the money to promote it to a wider audience, it would still be being read by the kind of people who subscribe to Wired but can't be bothered to download the enormous and frankly pointlessly "multimedia" iPad application, or the kind of people who pick up copies of gadget magazines, flip through the pages and wish that there was something stimulating amongst the endless stream of smartphone and hifi reviews.

I like to think that, back in this world, there is still a space for something like The Magazine – that the same idea, perhaps slightly tweaked, can be a long-term commercial success. At least, I hope so.

Some Random Nerd