Several tier-one publishing companies trumpeted encouraging results from early iPad app deployments, indicating the device (and similar tablets) may prove a lucrative distribution platform for digital content. According to The Guardian, the app created by business newspaper the Financial Times has generated more than £1 million in advertising since its launch, with more than 400,000 people having downloaded the app. It now makes up 10 percent of the publication’s new digital subscriptions. And mocoNews notes that consumer publisher Conde Nast has seen more than 3.8 million downloads of its apps since launch, across brands including GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired and Glamour.

Interestingly, Conde Nast has discerned that most iPad use tends to be in the home, and therefore it should not be considered a mobile device when devising an advertising or content strategy – limiting the potential for location-based campaigns. It was suggested that this usage model may change as tablet devices become cheaper and more portable, but currently the iPad is most popular for static use. mocoNews said that the company also found that iPad users spend around 160 minutes reading titles per month, compared with 45 minutes for print titles, although Apple does not provide the publisher with enough information to tell if this 160 minutes is on a single issue of a single title, or across multiple products.