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Playboy iPad Webapp Now Available

By | May 19, 2011 | 2 comments
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Earlier this year, Hugh Hefner, founder of the magazine Playboy, made a lot of noise by announcing that the March issue of the iPad version of his magazine would come uncensored, a first for an iOS app – so far, like with every apps in the App Store, the content within the Playboy iPad app was restricted.

As it turns out, the app was released as a webapp optimized for the iPad, and not a full blown iPad app, to get around the restrictions imposed by the App Store.


Named iPlayboy, and available at i.playboy.com, the webapp offers full access to iPad-optimized digital versions of the magazine for $8 per month, $60 per year, or $100 every two years.

Hefner’s move is bold, as the web app gets around Apple’s restrictions on two aspects: content and revenue. The content of the app cannot be controlled by Apple, as after all, it is available via a web browser, and furthermore, the subscription is entirely handled by the magazine, to avoid the 30-percent cut Apple asks for full-blown, native magazine apps.

Note that Playboy was one of the first publications to make a digital version of its magazine specifically for the iPad. So far, readers could only purchase censored issues of the magazine via the App Store.

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  • Anonymous

    this may prove very important.

    first, here is iPad print media that a lot of people really might pay $8 a month for – a lot more than $5 for the New Yorker or Post. we’ll see.

    second, the technical approach is the long-hyped but little realized web app. judging from the demo video, the iPlayboy “app” website really looks and feels like a standard iPad app. must be pretty much state of the art HTML 5. and once you add a shortcut bookmark icon to your iPad screen you won’t notice much of a difference at all, if any.

    third, it pays no app fee to Apple at all. Playboy keeps it all.

    others have tried something like this of course, but not as well executed (and they don’t have a back catalog of 60 years of naked women to offer either).

    we’ll see if this catches on with other mag media, as an alternative to the Apple subscription model.

    btw, the layout works fine on the iPad’s 4:3 screen in portrait. obviously not going to fit so easily on to the typical 16:9 Android tab screens (esp. all those pdf style back issues).

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_55HM4HRDP3XD7KYFRLDH7OKGOY Michael

    Print media is dieing a slow…lingering death….the writing is on the pad…