Quark aims for iPad publishing with App Studio and QuarkXPress 9.1
Quark has launched QuarkXPress 9.1, a free update to QuarkXPress 9 that features App Studio. App Studio allows designers to create branded apps for the iPad, distribute apps through the Apple App Store, and design and publish content that can be purchased and downloaded from within the apps.
App Studio: Scrollable layouts let readers flick through content on a single screen — without turning pages.
“The proliferation of digital devices has created significant challenges for designers and publishers who not only need to get to the iPad, but who want to offer their readers an innovative, cutting-edge experience,” said Gavin Drake, vice president of marketing for Quark. “With App Studio we eliminate the biggest hurdles by offering a solution that designers can manage without requiring programming and that is affordable. Just as importantly, our pricing model doesn’t lock customers into monthly subscriptions, download costs, or revenue shares with Quark, which means taking the first step into iPad publishing doesn’t require a long term commitment.”
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The key components of App Studio are QuarkXPress 9, App Studio Factory, App Studio Issue Previewer and the App Studio Publishing Portal. In QuarkXPress 9.1 , the new App Studio layout space within allows designers to create dedicated vertical and horizontal orientations simultaneously with content that can be automatically synchronised between orientations. Designers can enrich content with pictures, slideshows, movies, audio, and scrollable layouts that are unique to tablet devices. Additionally QuarkXPress 9.1 features a Trim Preview feature that allows you to hide the bleed and pasteboard objects to give a more accurate output preview, the ability to view pages with suppressed items and layers hidden and a View Sets feature to create customised views that can be invoked with a key command.
To create branded apps designers use App Studio Factory, the standalone Mac OS X software included with QuarkXPress 9.1. App Studio Factory enables designers to create customised App Studio apps using predefined app templates that offer a variety of features, including in-app purchases and in-app subscriptions.
Customise the pictures in your issues with App Studio by setting up parameters for interactive behaviour, such as panning and zooming.
Designers can test App Studio issues with App Studio Issue Previewer, a free app, by downloading it to their iPad from the Apple App Store, or by installing it on a Mac and running it in the iOS Simulator. Users can test as many App Studio issues as they’d like using App Studio Issue Previewer free of charge. The App Studio Publishing Portal can be used to manage App Studio apps and issue files, including when and where they are published and tracking when and where issues are sold.
To publish to the iPad with App Studio, designers and publishers will have to purchase an app template licence and an issue licence pack from Quark. These are one-off costs required for each app created and each issue published to the app. Other than these two costs, the Apple developer account required by Apple and the cost of hosting the content, there are no ongoing fees required by Quark.
In App Studio you can speed up the layout process by synching content across horizontal and vertical orientations.
As an example of Quark’s pricing structure, a designer creating an app for a one-time single issue would purchase from Quark the app template licence, which costs £95 / 119 € and a one-issue licence pack, which costs £255 / 279 €. In this instance, the fees from Quark equal £350 / 398 €, plus the designer will need Apple iOS Developer Program membership, which costs $99.
Visit Quark for a full breakdown of the cost per each app template and the licence bundles
Quark is providing discounts of up to 90 percent to App Studio users in education, including faculty, students, and institutions. With this discount, a design student can create an app from £40 / 43 € for both the app template licence and issue licence pack, and an education institution could publish a monthly iPad magazine for £345 / 375 € for the first year.
Current QuarkXPress 9 users can get started by downloading QuarkXPress 9.1 for free.
A comprehensive user guide is available that runs App Studio users through the process of enriching content, creating apps, and managing apps.
