Lots of publishers have reimagined their magazines as an iPad app, but no one yet has created an iPad-only magazine. Until now. The first issue of a title called Sideways is available from the US app store for $3.99, and appropriately for a magazine that targets earlier adopters its content is focused on that readership’s current obsession – their iPad.

Obviously, many publishers have launched iPad versions of their existing print titles. The FT, Vanity Fair and Wired are just a few examples. But the advent of Sideways marks the first iPad-only title.

Sideways has just gone on sale in the US and its navel-gazing content covers apps for iPad, music for iPad and even training for a marathon using an iPad. TechCrunch suggested that the latter would be best done by leaving the thing at home, and I’m inclined to agree.

The articles in Sideways are largely formated in traditional magazine style, but they use video where a picture might be in a print magazine and readers can scroll up and down through articles like they would do on a website; “not sideways, which is silly given the name of the magazine”, says TechCrunch.

According to Sideways chief executive Charles Stack (the man who sold the pre-Amazon Books.com to Barnes & Noble, so he knows a thing or two about money-spinning): “You have a built-in demographic. Who are the readers? The people who own an iPad.” It’s very obvious, but that’s not to say it’s a bad idea.

The first issue contains a feature on The World Cup, including a guide on apps, venues and dates and suggestions on how to fake your way through the tournament. Presumably for Americans not wanting to get beaten up by football louts, that means not referring to the game as “soccerball”.

The strength of it appears to lie in where it stops being printed word magazine and starts to act more like an app. The piece on World Cup stadiums and dates pops for instance has open a map studded with all the stadiums across South Africa. There is also a video explanation of why European fans sing and Americans don’t, an interactive map of venues and a primer to help the casual fan follow along.

There is also a summer of music feature that provides an interactive map of the top music festivals and a linked list of the major tours. That’s quite cool and the kind of thing that I would want. Other regular sections on offer include:

• Music and Games – Weekly video reviews of the latest music releases and gaming apps
• Travel – Monthly column on using apps to plan and enhance travel
• Tips & Tricks – Quick videos on how to accomplish useful and interesting tasks on the iPad
• iMazing – Unusual apps and strange things for which the iPad has been used
• What’s on Your iPad? – Guests contribute columns on the five apps they can’t live without
• Brevity – Short works contributed by the online literary journal, Brevity
• A View From the Couch – A collection of exceptional news photos from the past month

The print magazine industry, somewhat clunkily in many cases, is releasing titles onto Apple’s must-have – GQ publisher Conde Naste recently trumpeted that it sold 365 copies of the US December issue of the men’s mag as a digital download.

Unlike GQ, Sideways carries no advertising. But advertisers are no doubt waiting until the mag establishes a sizeable audience, and existing links to music available on iTunes will pay Sideways a commission.

But still, the big question is that if Conde Nast only sold a couple of hundred issues of its established and widely-read GQ and made a paltry $1,000 – is the idea a money-maker?

Sideways itself clearly needs to make more money, a lot more than GQ did. It has six full-time staffers and a pool of freelances, and my guess is they’ll want paying.