The National Geographic Interactive Magazine for the iPad

A while back I ran across a promotion for the National Geographic magazine on the iPad. You could buy individual issues for $5, or a year's subscription for $20.  I got the year's subscription, and I am so glad I did.  The iPad version of the magazine is incredible!  

It is like exploring an adventure video game.  The cover of the June 2012 magazine is a picture of a solar flare, except it isn't a picture, it's a video.  The story inside the magazine has a whole bunch of other videos of the sun.  


Another article in that issue talks about climbing Mount Everest.  There are pictures, interactive maps, videos, links to other sources, even shots of stories about Mt. Everest taken from earlier editions of National Geographic.  There is one picture inside an ice cave that allows you to look 360º all around you.


The July issue has an article on languages that are disappearing as their speakers die off and their children don't learn the languages. The article has audio of people speaking the language.

You can't go through the magazine page by page.  Rather you go to a page and then have two or three different directions you can go from there depending on what you are most interested in.  It is a lot of fun and it's dazzling to look at and read. If other magazines can match this high standard set by the National Geographic, we are in for some delightful adventures just by reading magazines on our iPads.

I just went back up to the National Geographic web site, and they have reduced the subscription costs. It appears that U.S. and Canadian subscribers can now get a one-year subscription for $15. This also gives you the ability to access all of their archived magazines clear back to 1888. I have never enjoyed reading a magazine so much.