I’m convinced that the people who actually write for magazines, edit them and publish them have never actually tried using their iPad versions for more than a few moments. If they actually did try to use their publication’s app as the actual means to read each issue, things would have to improve. Right? RIGHT?!

Justin Williams tears apart GQ, Esquire and Sports Illustrated for their poor implementation on the iPad. He also offers 10 solutions magazine publishers could use to help themselves.

The iPad should be a great device for reading a magazine, but publishers take old school thinking into a new medium, and that’s just not going to work. Remember all of those subscribe cardboard ads that would fall out of your paper magazine? Publishers are looking for the digital equivalent of that.

What they will find is that many of their users will just stop downloading and subscribing.

The first rule of any business should be “don’t piss off your customers.” Many publishers are failing.