Since opening for business at the end of January, The Atavist has published three long pieces that are native to the tablet in concept and execution, and it has had over 40,000 downloads of its app. Writers are paid a fee to cover reporting expenses and then split revenue with The Atavist. For the time being, an article costs $2.99 for the iPad and $1.99 for the Kindle or Nook.

“Lifted,” by Mr. Ratliff, one of the debut pieces, is about an immense heist at a Swedish cash repository, weighed in at 13,000 words. But instead of opening with a long explanation of how it was done, the reader is dropped into the actual video taken by the security cameras. A helicopter comes into view; dark-clad men in ski masks send a ladder down through a skylight and then are seen carrying guns, and later, heavy bags of cash through the interior. The video ends, cue text, and the story is rolling.

In another article of similar length, by Brendan Koerner, called “Piano Demon” about Teddy Weatherford, the Chicago jazzman who stormed Asia, there are many extra audio obscurities that deepen the reader experience. And “Before the Swarm,” a 9,000-word dive into, you guessed it, a man who lived among the ants, gorgeous, highly detailed photography — and really funny, gross videos — pull the reader along.

The most remarkable thing about these can’t-look-away pieces of multimedia journalism is that Mr. Rabb devised a content-management system that allows a writer to build it alone. Before taking on The Atavist, Mr. Rabb had never before worked in Objective-C, the code used to build most apps for Apple devices, but he bought a book about the code and developed a prototype within a month.

The Atavist approach should easily scale to nonfiction books, and a number of discussions are under way with publishers. There have also been talks about licensing the content management software. One executive from a major publisher, who declined to speak for attribution because the company is in the midst of negotiations with The Atavist, all but wolf-whistled when I called.

“It’s almost unbelievable that these three guys came up with something so spectacular,” he said. “This is something we are all working on, and the solution that they came up with both in terms of the reader experience and the production is really remarkable.”

Because of the reading experience provided by the iPad and other devices, there is a bit of a renaissance for longer articles in realms beyond apps like The Atavist.