App Studio recently announced that it will be hosting the “Think Beyond Ink Tour” which has been designed specifically to shed light on the importance of digital publishing. The tour will address five important aspects of digital publishing which includes – Why digital is the future of publishing; the difference between apps and eBooks; the costs involved in creating and publishing apps; why designers need to go beyond static, boring PDFs; and How to create HTML5-based apps from QuarkXPress and InDesign.

The Think Beyond Ink Tour is essentially a series of free, half-day events which have been scheduled to be held on the following dates and locations – March 13, 2013: San Francisco, CA (News – Alert); March 21, 2013: Hamburg, Germany; March 27, 2013: Paris France; April 2, 2013: New York, NY; April 10, 2013: London, UK.

App Studio is the next-generation cloud-based solution that supports designing and publishing content-based apps. It offers users benefits which include ease-of-use, greater flexibility, and cost-effective usage.  

Designers can use the QuarkXPress or InDesign tool of their choice to quickly create interactive layouts which they can directly upload to App Studio’s cloud environment and benefit from easy management. App Studio layouts are HTML5 format-based which effectively optimizes the layouts for improved app experiences over the iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire, and Android devices. With HTML5, App Studio apps allow users to search and select text, share, tag (News – Alert) and bookmark among other such options.  

Designed to be cost-effective for the individual and small agencies as well as for large enterprises, App Studio’s pricing model starts at $99.95 per month for multi-issue publications.

Getting started with App Studio is easy and all a designer has to do is create a free account. This account can be used for logging in via the QuarkXPress or InDesign tool, post which the user can start designing and testing digital publications. Users who have already created and tested trial publications will be able to quickly convert these publications to live apps by selecting a plan and going through the payment process.