The BMJ is on the iPad

The BMJ is now available as an iPad application (app) for Apple’s tablet computer—the first one of its kind to be launched by a general medical journal. The app combines the content chosen for the weekly BMJ print journal plus live feeds of news, blogs, podcasts, and videos on bmj.com⇓.

Our aim in developing the app was to deliver a new version of the BMJ to the growing number of iPad users worldwide, and to respond to the findings of our online survey of visitors to bmj.com last year. Many international website subscribers who responded to the survey were interested in the print journal, despite not receiving it. We hope the app gives people a sense of what the print BMJ looks like each week without lapsing into what usability expert Jakob Neilson described as an “overly strong print metaphor” when he reviewed the iPad after its US launch in April 2010.1

Each issue of the app sits behind an image of that week’s print cover with clickable cover lines and a colour coded table of contents, including editor’s choice, letters, obituaries, views and reviews, and …