The Times Incorporated has announced the demo of the digitized version of its extremely popular magazine, the Sports Illustrated and has stated the the digital version has been designed keeping in mind the upcoming Apple Tablet and similar devices that might be launched by other companies. Another major publication house, Conde Nast had announced earlier that, it was digitizing its magazines so as to make them compatible with the e-readers and other tablet devices.

Time Inc is also planning to convert the rest of its publications in to a similar format, provided the Sports Illustrated edition succeeds in its goals of attracting online subscriptions and the new editions will be ready to be rolled out by the mid 2010. The demo version of Sports Illustrated is pretty much the same as the digitized publications of Conde Nast, but in some respects, this new addition is quite streamlined and offers a bit more interactive environment than that of Conde Nast.

The main difference between the digitized publications of Code Nast and Times Inc. is that the former is using Adobe’s technology to creates the online versions of its magazines and the latter has taken a more conventional road by employing the services of The Wonder Factory, to create the demo and if all goes well, Times In. might just go with The Wonder Factory all the way.

According to Terry McDonell (Editor, Sports Ilustrated),

“Nobody reads the magazine on the Website. That’s a firehose. This is the opposite of a firehose.”

Via Engadget.