Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Not Sweating the Details at iPhone Life Magazine


The Premiere Issue May Be The Premier Issue. Or Not.


I already get way too many magazines, but every once in a while head over to a newsstand to see what I'm missing.
Yesterday, with some time to kill in Grand Central Terminal, I stumbled upon a new title called iPhone Life, whose oeuvre shouldn't be too hard to detect.
It's put out by Thaddeus Computing, a small Iowa-based outfit that also puts out Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine.
Whatever the company spent on starting iPhone Life, it came at the expense of a copy editor. Otherwise, we likely wouldn't have been told on the cover that the premiere issue is the "premier issue."
This wasn't just a careless typo, apparently. It's prominent on the Web site as well, and more than once, to boot.
Good luck, anyway. Yes, spelling still counts in publishing -- at least for now.
Thaddeus does deserve props for an unusual blowout card (the same offer is available online), in which it invites people to subscribe for $25 and get all issues through 2010, though it doesn't commit to a hard number, beyond saying it'll be at least eight.
In this environment, it's easy to undertand why Thaddeus doesn't want to commit to a publication schedule, especially when more deep-pocketed publishers are cutting back or 86ing titles altogether.
Still, it's a bit weird. They're holding out the promise of more than four issues a year. But given the sorry state of the magazine business, don't get too excited. Better to content yourselves with the eight issues, assuming, of course, iPhone Life even makes it to 2010.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe "premier" is the adjective form, "premiere" is the noun form, right? And it's being used as an adjective here, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

Was the magazine good, useful? I have liked the magazines Thaddeus Computing has produced starting with The Palmtop Paper about the HP 200LX in the 90's.

Steve Gosset said...

Premier is an adjective. However, it is most commonly used to describe something that's first in rank or degree.
Premiere, which can be a noun, verb or adjective, is most commonly referred to when talking about something that precedes all others in time.
I think what they really meant to say was "premiere."
As for the magazine itself, if you have an iPhone and want the skinny on all the apps available, you could find it of interest. You can check out the content yourself at http://www.smartphonemag.com/iphone/current-issue.

Anonymous said...

My dictionary doesn't show that "premiere" can be used as an adjective. And the definition of "premier" seems to fit the context. But a search on "premier issue" and "premiere issue" in Google News archives shows that, surprisingly, both are commonly used, with "premiere issue" being somewhat more common.