New Catalogs Section

For the longest time catalog apps where all over the place on the app store. Some in Lifestyle, some in Entertainment, some in the area matching the goods they are depicting.

In the past Apple has been known to establish a new section on the app store whenever the need for it becomes obvious. Remember, when they introduced the Books section? Or Newsstand?

Apple now has opened a new section titled Catalogs that aggregates all such apps. This is of special interest to us because of the multitude of digital catalogs that are built with our iCatalog.framework technology.

Apple kindly replaced the category for all catalog apps. They set the primary category to Catalogs and the secondary category became what they previously had for primary. We got notified by email after the fact.

1. Brooks Brothers iCatalog App
2. Vera Bradley iCatalog
3. Bloomingdale’s iCatalog App
4. Lilly Pulitzer iCatalog
5. Serena & Lily iCatalog App
6. Soft Surroundings iCatalog App
7. Steve Madden iCatalog
8. Country Door iCatalog App
9. Woman Within iCatalog App
10. Lion Brand Yarn iCatalog
11. Jessica London iCatalog App
12. OneStopPlus iCatalog App
13. Roaman’s iCatalog App
14. Lafayette 148 New York iCatalog App
15. KingSize Direct iCatalog App
16. Wine Country Gift Baskets iCatalog App
17. Gorsuch iCatalog
18. Simon Pearce iCatalog App

The current layout on iTunes seems to favor iPhone-catalogs which puts us at a bit of a disadvantage only supporting iPad. But on tablets we are the clear technology leaders because iCatalogs are not simple PDF readers, but they bring a multitude of additional interactive features and multimedia.

We’ll let you be the judge of that, just play with any of the above linked catalogs. iCatalog.framework is a product of Drobnik KG with International Color Services being the exclusive worldwide distribution partner. You can contact Octavio Cifuentes to schedule a demo and explore how ICS can help convert your catalogs into a compelling iPad experience.

Catalogs are the Better Magazines

Modern well-made catalogs are every inch an experience as magazines are, because the more captivating a catalog is the higher the sales of products will be. Many people “read” catalogs cover to cover because of this reason. Something you cannot do with most magazines because you’ll get distracted by full-page ads on every other page. And we’re not even going to mention all the other emotions that catalogs inspire.

Apple introduced Newsstand last year to aggregate digital magazine apps. They added  some very compelling features:

• Ability to subscribe to (paid) content
• Background delivery of issues, triggered by push notification
• A shelf/folder that aggregates all Magazines
• Ability to set a new cover for each issue

At present this functionality is reserved to paid apps, even though most modern catalogs are really close to actual magazines. So how about having a tab on the Newsstand shelf dedicated to catalogs? I just filed an Enhancement Request (rdar://11017380) for that.

We are keeping our fingers crossed so that Apple will eventually extend Newsstand functionality to include catalog apps. Adding Retina graphics makes individual catalog sizes explode and it would be really nice to be able to use automatic background downloading for free catalog books as well.

Categories: Publishing