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Use the mag+ custom app development SDK to create
and publish groundbreaking
mobile applications.
Our tools, our distribution, your app. That’s the mag+ App Software Development Kit, a way for you to build the award-winning mag+ reader into any iOS app. Leverage our simple and creative InDesign-based tools to build your content and our powerful Publish backend to distribute it, without being tied to our standard reader app. Catalogs, games, magazines—any app with content can now be enhanced with mag+. Watch the video
A regular mag+ app vs. a mag+ SDK custom app?
Here are just a few of the things you can do with a custom app that you can’t do with a regular mag+ app.
Change the menu. With the SDK, you build your own menu, so you can add new options, such as a shopping cart or custom buttons. And the menu can be placed anywhere you want and look however you want.
Customize the store and library. Want a different storefront? With the SDK, you can build your own store and library interfaces and decide what goes in them. You can even skip them all together and just bundle your issue into the app.
Add third-party services. Want Google Analytics in your app? Or Facebook’s OpenGraph API? With the SDK, you can build whatever third-party services you want into your app.
Change the navigation. The SDK includes some of the basic mag+ features, such as the thumbnail scrubber and the page-length indicator, but you can delete these, change them, or build your own. You can even create your own control gestures.
Embed the mag+ reader in another app. Already have an app—maybe a game, a tool, or a catalog? With the SDK, you can put the mag+ Reader inside that app, so reading your content becomes just another feature of your app.
The Components
The mag+ SDK has two parts: fetching the content and displaying it for the user.
1. The Reader
The mag+ Reader renders the beautiful content you’ve created. The market leading mag+ creative toolset lets you build stunning content including video, sound, HTML—native to any iOS device.
Read more below! »
Tech info! »
2. Publish Connect
The Connect component ties into our mag+ Publish backend, where you can upload issues for distribution, send push notifications and more.
So what can you do with it?
The mag+ SDK is your shortcut to building amazing apps for any category. You focus on a great user experience and beautiful content—we take care of everything else.
Editorial. Create your ideal magazine or newspaper app
Be unique! Building a custom publishing app no longer has to be a giant, expensive project. Design your own navigation, add features not offered by us (or any other system), and make your digital magazine a function of a larger brand app. Create the app that you want, the app that’s right for your business, without reinventing the entire ecosystem.
E-commerce
Catalogues and Shopping Experiences
Take the shopping experience to a whole new level! Make your shopping experience as inspirational as any magazine and as efficient as any e-commerce site. Create your own beautiful catalog with our simple InDesign plug-in, and build in custom shopping functionality, such as a shopping cart, favorites list, and purchasing—while we handle the distribution.
Entertainment Engaging Music and Movies Apps
What happened to the album cover or the music video? Any musician, movie star, album or movie now can have its own app—unique stories told in unique ways—featuring music, lyrics, video clips, and behind-the-scenes content. Build your own apps while using our creation and distribution products.
Tools. Add inspirational content to any utility or game app
Consumers want content from the brands they love. Now you don’t have to choose between being a tool or a game and being a content provider. Spice up your app experience by creating and publishing magazine-like inspirational material into your photo-editing app, or add a tips and tricks issue to your game. Drive loyalty and value with great content.
The Creative Tools
The SDK lets you use the complete mag+ creative environment to build and package content.
InDesign PlugIn
Design your content in InDesign with the mag+ Plug-In. Add online content, interactivity, movies, and sound.
mag+ Reviewer
Instantly preview your content on any device with the mag+ Reviewer app. Share with your team or client and present ideas and concepts, all in real-time.
Featurebuilder (HTML5)
Use our Web-based HTML wizard to create the most common HMTL5 features, such as slideshows and 360-degree rotations, without any coding.
Production Tool
The Production Tool is the page-planning utility that gathers all your exported layouts so you can arrange, preview, and share your issue while you build it.
The Publishing Tool
The SDK gives you access to our powerful administrative and distribution backend.
mag+ Publish
Issue publishing: When you’re done with an issue, upload it to the publisher and decide which devices you want to publish it to. Add a cover, title, and description for the store and library. Click the “Publish” button, and your issue will show up in your app. Tie it to an in-app purchase to sell it, or make it free—you decide.
Push notifications: Send unlimited notifications to your users just by typing a message and clicking “Send.”
Full subscription control: Use our simple subscription API to tie your app into your existing fulfillment house and sell subscriptions on your own site, or control access with a sign-in window.
Newsstand: Build an app that’s compatible with Apple’s Newsstand and even get an automated feed to send the right cover art to the Newsstand when you publish.
No download charges: With mag+, you always have the opportunity to host issues yourself and pay nothing to us. Or you can use our hosting and pay a few cents per issue—no prepayment necessary.
mag+ SDK Deliverables
The following components are included in the SDK package.
The Reader
The mag+ iOS SDK consists of more than forty Objective-C classes and protocols for parsing, rendering, and interacting with MIB files created using the mag+ tools.
MIBKit is designed as a first-class UIKit citizen, adhering to Cocoa Touch conventions and best practices.
MIBKit is ready for low-level customization and high-level convenience, leveraging core animation for high performance and the latest iOS features for sharing content and media playback.
Think of MIBKit as your WebKit for high-production-value mag+ content.
Connector
(DennisKit)
The mag+ iOS SDK includes nonblocking asynchronous APIs for accessing the mag+ publishing platform. It provides access to issues, entitlements, subscriptions, and application run-time configuration settings as well as robust content download, including background Newsstand downloads, and integration with StoreKit and third-party subscription services.
Docs & Samples
Included in the mag+ iOS SDK is fully integrated documentation as Xcode docsets, for inline and searchable help.
Small, and to the point, example projects are included to get you started and demonstrate mag+ iOS SDK key features.
The mag+ SDK requires Xcode 4.5 or later, taking advantage of the latest iOS 6 features while being able to target back to iOS 5.0.