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There’s more to a gadget than just good hardware. An elegantly designed user interface can put a gadget head and shoulders above its peers. That’s where most e-readers have fallen short. E-reader manufacturers’ focus on hardware design means their user interfaces often feel like an afterthought.

Another way to enhance the experience may be through opening up e-readers to third-party apps, as Amazon has done with the Kindle. That could bring additional features to the devices and maybe even alternate readers with more elegant interfaces.

The growing body of overall information on tablet readership is reinforcing some early impressions that are promising for magazines on tablets, according to Conde Nast. Readers typically swipe through tablet editions from front to back, for example, the same way they work their way through print editions. They browse -- taking in ads as they go -- instead of jumping directly to specific articles the way web surfers do. "Consumer behavior with digital editions of magazines is very much like their behavior with print editions of magazines, and very much unlike their behavior with websites," Mr. McDonald said. Digital-edition readers are also still younger but more affluent than magazines' print readers, Conde Nast said, although the disparity has narrowed as tablet ownership has grown and Amazon and Barnes & Noble have introduced devices that are cheaper than the iPad. And ads with some level of interactivity -- a hotlink at a minimum -- continue to usually hold readers' attention longer than static ads.

The Digital Publishing Platform being developed by Adobe allows publishers and advertisers to create immersive onscreen experiences that combine the visual impact of print design, the immediacy of touch interaction, and the engagement of interactive elements such as video, audio, animated infographics, 360° views, and more. Because this platform builds on the foundation of Creative Suite 5, it lets magazine design, editorial, and production teams use familiar tools and skills to efficiently create versions for print and a wide range of screens. Integrated analytics will enable publishers to plan editorial content and provide advertisers with accurate, detailed insight into how readers are interacting with stories and ads.

Lonny looks and acts like a print magazine, not a Web site or a blog. It has pages to turn, a table of contents and full-page ads. But it offers Web-only benefits like zoomable, clickable images, so readers can inspect a lamp displayed in a photograph of someone’s living room and then click to buy it.

Lonny is published every other month using Issuu, a Web platform where, for $19 a month, anyone can upload a PDF and instantly create an online magazine that looks like a print one.

“you’ll know a new narrative form has emerged when you have to consume a particular story on an iPad to truly understand its content, and reading it on any other platform simply wouldn’t work.”

A startup called Treesaver has developed a slick presentation framework for digital magazines that runs in the browser. It has many of the features you’d expect from a clean, reader-friendly content wrapper (like Instapaper or Readability) but it couples that functionality with a way-cool user interface.

Presently, online versions of magazines lose "the coherence and majesty of the [printed] medium," said Anderson. Tablets, on the other hand, offer impressive functionality, such as 360-degree views and iPhone-like screen sliding, plus collapsing and layering -- all of which make the user experience vastly more compelling than the Web,

Also revolutionary from an editorial and design perspective is that magazine staffers -- now editing for print and the Web in separate work flows -- will be able to edit for print and tablets simultaneously.

tablet renderings of traditional magazines will draw consumers who weren't magazine readers before.

Time Inc.’s Fortune is keeping its name, but a redesign aims to reflect a time when many of its readers have less of the prosperity that the name suggests.

Fortune also is aiming for a more high-end feel, with a switch to heavier paper stock. The changes come as the magazine drops its frequency to 18 issues from 25 issues.

The iPad might face similar hurdles. Thanks to its multiple functionality (not to be confused with multitasking), it will no doubt be popular as an entertainment device for surfing the web, playing games and listening to music, but from an educational standpoint, these functions might serve to distract students from their scholastic pursuits. Furthermore, while some might view the iPad’s touch screen as an advantage, when trying to take notes, it might prove unwieldy.

these companies are feeling the pressure to respond to the iPad, which went on sale April 3. But their decisions to develop the hybrid products also demonstrate their desire to expand their core businesses, and to experiment with varying kinds of business models and technologies.

Google is going one step further, exploring the idea of building its own slate, an e-reader that would function like a computer.