iLounge

Soft-Launch: The Amazing 2012 iPhone + iPod Buyers’ Guide

By Jeremy Horwitz

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Monday, October 31, 2011
Category: Backstage

Every year for the past seven years, iLounge’s editors have spent Halloween finishing up a special treat for our readers: our annual Buyers’ Guide. This year, due to the growth of the iPad, we decided to create two Guides—one was released in June for the iPad, and the one we’re soft-launching right now is focused on the iPhone and iPod.

As you probably could have guessed from past editions, our Buyers’ Guides require a huge amount of time to create and test. The 2012 iPhone + iPod Buyers’ Guide was the product of both the past year of everything you’ve seen on the iLounge site, and two very intense months of additional writing and photography.

At 218 pages in length, including some special new sections, this publication is the largest Buyers’ Guide we’ve ever assembled. There’s so much inside that we’re going to just let you grab it and digest it all; a full table of contents can be found on our Library page if you want a quick preview.

As always, two versions are available, and both can be viewed using iBooks for iOS devices, Adobe Acrobat on PCs, and Preview on Macs—as well as other PDF readers and PDF-ready web browsers. One version of the Guide is in a single-page format that fills the entire screen of an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch with one page at a time, and requires one swipe to turn every page. This version is ideal for Apple’s pocket devices, but less necessary on the iPad or a full-sized computer. Our second version offers a double-page spread that looks like a magazine. We recommend this for computer users and generally for iPad users as well; you can always zoom in on the pages if you want to see more. We ask that you download only one version so that other readers can get their copies without needing to wait.

Thank you to all of the iLounge editors past and present whose contributions made the 2012 iPhone + iPod Buyers’ Guide possible. We’re thrilled with this year’s edition, which looks particularly outstanding on iPad screens. Enjoy!