Well, speak of the devil. Here's a video showing Time Inc.'s digital magazine concept; take a look, then compare it to the video from earlier this week showing the UK's Sun magazine entry in the handheld display market.
(Time Digital Magazine Video)
Now, the Sun's tongue-in-cheek response to the digital magazine mania:
Time's concept was designed by David Link at the Wonderfactory, and it’s all done in Adobe AIR. According to a Techcrunch article, websites for major brands like Time generate just one-tenth of the ad revenue provided by print publications. So you could see how Time, Inc. would like to design the tablet version of a magazine like Sports Illustrated and sell it to you.
Would you pay, let's say, $500 for a 10" tablet device that would let you swipe through color pictures and read text and possibly watch videos? $500 would cover a lot of magazine subscriptions. On the other hand, you could carry around dozens of magazines (and journals and books etc.) in a tablet device, updating them wirelessly, which would be very convenient. On the other hand, now that I think about it, you'd need to pay $100s for subscriptions on top of what you paid for the tablet device.
As you see, I have too many "other hands" for this topic.
Science fiction authors from Stanislaw Lem (the opton) to Frederik Pohl (the joymaker) to Douglas Adams (the Hitchhiker's Guide) come down on the side of electronic devices for reading.
Harrison Bergeron, Illustrated And Practiced
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...' - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1961.
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...' - Philip K. Dick,
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
Starfall Manufacturing Drugs In Space
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'