By James Manning
Title: TopGear
Issue: July 2015
Total pages: Um, iPad edition doesn’t need page numbers, you just click on what you want from the contents.
Cover price: $6.49 (iPad edition)
Coverlines that work: Not many coverlines on the iPad edition, but “The Godzilla” got our attention.
Ad pages: The ads from the print edition don’t make it to the iPad. But there are a few Bauer Media ads for other titles.
Editor: Tim Keen
Publisher: Bauer Media
With the final Clarkson, May and Hammond Top Gear going to air this week, will more people turn to the magazine for their Top Gear fix?
I am yet to be convinced iPad editions are as good as, let alone better than printed copies. They do have their advantages though – immediacy of course, especially for overseas titles, and the ability to load up on extras and videos. However, with never enough time to read the titles you want to, how many people really have time to consume the extras too?
The extra content in the TopGear iPad app include the editor’s favourite images that didn’t make the final edition of the magazine. There are some good photos too.
This edition has seven major features plus columns from former Top Gear hosts Richard Hammond and James May.
TopGear TV guru Andy Wilman has a great history of Top Gear TV and he writes about what the BBC has lost in getting rid of Jeremy Clarkson. However don’t expect any insights into what might be next for the team. No mentions of Netflix or ITV!
TopGear magazine has always been a star when it comes to reviewing vehicles and the First Drives section this month there are 16 reviews. The cars covered range from top end like the Jaguar XE through to slightly more affordable modes of transport like the Hyundai i40.
If that is not enough, the Garage section covers vehicles that TopGear journalists have been driving for a longer period. This month that ranges from a Ford Falcon ute through to a Merc SL500. “Tradies have never had it so good,” writes James Cleary about the ute.
The back end of the book, or in this case the last of the digital pages, are taken up with Data, the magazine’s new car guide. This is one section that does shine in the digital format. It is dead easy to toggle between the different brands checking out all the different features of the various models from the different manufacturers. The prices are the most important bit of data and there is detail about the cost of model variants too.
Extra digital: The BBC seems to house the TopGear website. Click on the Australia button and you are suddenly deep into the BBC. There are a couple of tweets everyday for the Australian edition’s 10,000 Twitter followers. On Facebook 333,000 have liked the TopGear Australia page.
A print subscription costs $69.95 with an iPad subscription costing $44.99.