Many digital magazines are barely half as good as their print counterparts, but the Cosmopolitan Showcase Edition iPad app might make you want to abandon the old-fashioned paper version of the magazine forever. It's well-designed, simple to navigate, and it moans when touched.
Yes, the app really does produce some moaning sounds thanks to an article on how to "decode his bedroom sounds," which has buttons that can be tapped for sample sound effects. (You might not want to touch those buttons if reading the magazine in public and without headphones on!)
That naughty feature aside, the app is all-around great — especially in comparison to some of the awkwardly designed digital magazines we've seen in the past. The interactive features are well-placed and rarely little more than a gimmick.
If you tap ads or fashion photos, you'll be taken straight to information on how to purchase the items shown, you can take quizzes without needing to rotate the page for the results (instead they'll automatically show up once you're done selecting answers), it only takes a single tap to reach submission forms for comments and confessions, and you can follow along with flowcharts by tapping your preferred choices.
With each swipe of the finger, you're taken to another page with intuitive and clever interactive elements.
That map of the most datable guys in the country? See what happens when you tap individual states on it. The feature showing the best jeans for each body type? It'll show you an alternate view of the pants if you tap them. And the fitness instructions that always confused you? They come with a video now.
The Cosmo app is certainly a beauty among many sloppy digital magazines and we hope that the Showcase Edition is only the first of many digital versions of the girl-friendly magazine.
The Cosmopolitan Showcase Edition iPad app is priced at $2.99 and available in the iTunes App Store now.
Related stories:
- Morning-after app lets you pretend last night never happened
- New app automatically shares photos with everyone near you
- App turns your iPad into a guide to the royal wedding
Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter, loves to be liked on Facebook, and considers reading Cosmopolitan to be an occasional guilty pleasure.