Ondrej Holzman Apple has acquired Dutch startup Prss with a platform for easily creating iPad-compatible digital magazines. Thanks to Prss, publishers didn't need to know any code. It's more or less iBooks Author, but with a focus on magazines. Apple confirmed the acquisition.
Startup Prss was founded in 2013 by the team behind Trvl, one of the first iPad magazines. In 2010, it was the first publication exclusively for the iPad, which included many photos, and later received a number of awards. In 2012, Trvl was even mentioned by Tim Cook during the WWDC keynote.
After their success, Tvrl co-founders Jochem Wijnands and Michel Elings decided to put the acquired knowledge into an open platform and provide it to other publishers.
"Apple buys small tech companies from time to time, we generally don't talk about our intentions or plans," confirmed acquisition of Prss in a statement for TechCrunch Apple. Its similar service, iBooks Author, debuted in 2012 as a free content authoring tool for iBooks. However, this WYSIWYG editor is primarily intended for creating textbooks and ebooks and is not very suitable for other types of publications.
That could now change with the purchase of Prss. Apple could attract more people to its store with its own tool for easy magazine creation, including smaller magazines and projects. However, Apple's plans and the future of Prss remain only a matter of speculation.
