This is probably the most disappointing part of the iPad announcement.
I assumed they would have a magazine/print app like they do for books, that newspapers and magazines could easily use to format and provide their content.
That each publisher will have to make their own app seems to make it much less useful. If they did have a centralized mechanism to publish and display newspapers and magazines I think you would see everyone jumping on board, and new publications coming into existance to take advantage of it.
As it is, seems like a lot of independent work to put out a lot of inferior products. Seems like a mistake on Apple's part.
While I may be wrong, I would guess that Apple is offering a standardized format to each of these publishers. However, it would be illegal for Apple to enforce that standard unless it gets approved as ISO-certified and license the technology to anyone who wishes to use it. What Apple doesn't need to to be viewed as abusive of this potentially monopolistic technology (such as what Nokia is now accused of doing in their patent spat with Apple?) This means that Apple must permit other formats to become compatible with the iPad device, as long as they work within the bounds of the OS itself, as many current online magazines do with their own or a standardized software platform.
I think all of the corporate news agencies are missing one important issue.
If they and every other news outlet start charging a premium for news, then they will thin their audience even further. No one would subscribe to multiple paid outlets.
Once a person tries one subscription and it's poorly done, abcenely biased, crappy quality, then it will taint them all. Then we'll all go back to free aggregatiors and rss.
I do hope mags like Wired.com live up to their hype rather than waste my time.
One thing you may not be aware of is that, prior to the internet, Reuters and the AP were not a direct-to-consumer news source, they were, instead, a source for newspapers and network TV to get national and international news without having to send their own reporters all over the world. The local papers/networks paid the international sources to reprint/broadcast the articles at a decided cost savings to each unit while the international sources got paid 'token' amounts by thousands of reprinters. This made good money across the board for everyone.
However, with the advent of the internet, suddenly the consumer could get their news direct, eliminating the middlemen and suddenly biting into the income of the local news outlets and the national/international ones. circulation of almost all the newspapers is down drastically, and paid subscriptions is almost universally the only income most of these publishers have. The problem is, the internet-savvy consumer has gotten used to free news or ad-supported news through television and websites. Print is dying and the once rock-solid circulation base is thinning rapidly. Ad-supported sites seem to be weakening as well, since most of the ads are either national or international in scale, costing these same publishers local ad dollars.
In other words, paid online subscriptions are more important to these publishers now than paid print subscriptions. A number of publishers are experimenting with means of mixing online content with paid print subscriptions, but eventually they'll all have to find a way to get the consumer to pay for their online subscription. My only complaint so far is that many of these publishers feel they should charge more for their online content than they charge for their print content; that, to me, is wrong. If they made it the same price or slightly cheaper, I think they would realize significantly more income than they ever did relying on print alone since their market would now effectively become global, not merely local.
If these companies think I'm spending $600 for a 3G iPad, $30/month for "limited" unlimited data, then another $100/month on various content subscriptions, they are sadly mistaken. I think I speak for most of us that the iPad isn't that revolutionary to make us add $100+ more per month in fees and services.
Need AP? How about launching Safari then reading RSS feeds from Yahoo News, Google, etc. Good enough. AP trying to kill RSS much???
I'll respond to you as I did to someone earlier: It appears you have never paid for a print subscription to anything in your life. You seem to think that everything on the internet should be free for the taking, no matter what it cost the publisher to research, edit and format for consumption. I find your complaint about the $30/month for 'limited' unlimited data questionable at the least since there were no limits described in that data plan discussed in that announcement. Yes, the $15 plan had bandwidth limits, but I don't recall any bandwidth limit on the $30 'unlimited' plan. Still, you pay more than that for your hard-wired internet access at home, why shouldn't you have to pay for wireless access when mobile? And it's not like you're locked into a multi-year contract yet, either, though I don't doubt that some companies might subsidize a tablet purchase with one in the future.
As for paying for AP or Reuters, that's totally your own choice; you don't pay for it, you don't get it. Simple enough? That RSS feed you so tout could easily become merely the newpaper headline with a one-paragraph takeaway--if you want to read more, then pay your subscription and get "the rest of the story." (all homage paid to the late Paul Harvey) If you're paying $120/year for the NYT now, then you should have no qualms about paying $120/year for the digital version. If you're paying $45/year now for Model Railroader now, you should have no qualms about paying the same price for the digital version--especially if they include video content that the print edition cannot offer.
In other words, your argument simply does not hold water--or ink. If you're not willing to pay, then honestly you get what you pay for. Is that succinct enough for you?
