It is going to be a reality when comics hit the tablet market. Like I said in many posts ago, Disney BOUGHT Marvel Comics. Who was the shareholder of Disney?
That had a lot more to do with other ways to make money on Marvel properties... and very little to do with comic book revenues.
And, I'm not saying Comics can't or won't be content for sale on the Tablet- I'd say they will- just why do I need to buy a Tablet to enjoy my comics in paperless format? Won't my iTunes connected Laptop serve up those same comics at the same subscription price?
The reason it will be cheaper to buy comics or e-books for the tablet is because there is NO paper involved to be used for printing. In the publishing market, it is very expensive to print books and if they can go digital, it'll save trees and money. Win-win for the 'treehuggers' and the 'Corporate Moguls'.
No arguments against wanting to save trees, and that we are moving beyond the paper age in general. BUT, you are living in an illusion if you think it is the paper piece of the variable that makes up the bulk of the price of such publications. It's not. Sure, a digital copy of a magazine will cost less to "print" and distribute than a paper copy, but not much less (think salaries, etc.) More directly, look at the non-physical format media already for sale in the iTunes store and compare it to the physical media version. Doesn't it cost less to sell a movie via iTunes vs. on a DVD? So why can we often find DVDs (with all the extras) for the same- or even less than- the iTunes price? Doesn't it cost less to sell TV shows via iTunes vs. seasons on multiple DVDs? So why can we often find the DVD versions cheaper than the iTunes version... and again with a bunch of extras? Why is there a belief that the print industry content is going to be "bargain" priced when these other forms of physical media for sale via iTunes shows that content producers want to be paid well for their content... HOWEVER it is to be delivered to consumers?
Publishers won't need to do much more work because all it needs is a plug-in app for InDesign/Quark to convert the files to digital reading format. I suspect it will be interactive PDF.
What? You offered the idea of reading the usual article in SI, then having options to click for related video footage and similar NOT in the usual version of SI. Somebody will need to be paid for shooting, editing, etc that video footage. That adds cost. It's not like they are currently doing all this multimedia content for the magazine then just setting it all aside because they can't push videos into a paper medium. If the magazine on the Tablet has a lot of added multimedia features (which makes sense to me too), then it is likely to be priced HIGHER since it is an enhanced version of the magazine. The Print industry won't want to add a lot of work & cost to it's output and then charge a lot less for it.
Advertisement? That's easy. They're going to be similar to a web banner link. Like the ad you see? Touch it and you're transported to that company's website via browser from the e-book app. That's blatantly obvious right there.
There's no confusion about how ads can work in a computing device. Is anyone not familiar with online advertising methods? The point I attempted to convey is that an ad model doesn't carry the cost load of the print industry. More simply, they need subscription dollars to continue to be profitable businesses. That they'll take ad approaches they're already using with their online edition, and replicate the ads on e-pages of their print publication in the e-version, doesn't much change the amount of ad revenue they will capture when delivering via a Tablet. Their revenue woes simply continue, unless a lot more people subscribe. And a lot more people subscribing at a much lower subscription rate does not pave the way to success (unless volume is so heavy that it makes up for lower revenue-per-subscriber). The industry's problem now is that even $1 or so for a 60+ page daily newspaper stuffed with original content is often seen as "too expensive". So they've already been down the "try to do it in volume" path... and that's not getting the (profitability) job done. I can't imagine them cutting their pricing for Tablet distribution motivated by... what exactly? Why should they sell their subscriptions for less?
The newspaper industry is already dying and the tablet is the way to save their a$$es by going digital.
The dying part is true. Many have long-gone digital already, but that isn't saving them. That we will be able to read them on a Tablet doesn't seem so different than being able to read them through e-means already available. Sure, we might touch a flat surface to turn a page (instead of clicking an arrow key or clicking a mouse button), but how does that move the masses to want to save them (by buying subscriptions... many of which are already available via devices already owned).
Your feedback- and that of many others in this thread- reads like you anticipate a model that does work very well: buy this fantastic gizmo and it comes with a ton of valuable, desirable stuff for free. That worked with the iPod because the "free" part was CD collections people already had. As soon as you got home, you could rip all of your favorite music for free and then immediately enjoy it on your iPod. That worked on the iPhone because all the stuff you already owned in iTunes could flow into a single device that would now cover the mobile phone base very well too. That works with laptops because all the iTunes stuff you already own is already on that computer.
How will it work with this Tablet... if you already own some of this other iTunes connected gear? It's not going to be easy to "rip" paper magazine collections you already own. It's not practical to rip paper newspapers you have lying around. The big change relative to what made computers, iPods, and iPhone really appeal is that this time the hot stuff for this device will need to be
purchased from iTunes... much of which via ongoing subscription. And if that same content will be available to other iTunes-capable devices we already own, what about this Tablet makes us want to buy it so that we can buy that new iTunes content?
People who don't already own iTunes-equipped electronics may find this the one device to cover all the iPod/iPhone/laptop iTunes benefits. For them, this could be their first iPod/iPhone "wow" experience. But for those that already have an iPod or iPhone and a laptop, thus already having all the "free" content able to travel with them NOW, this Tablet appears to be a device you buy so that you can then buy a lot of additional content to make it really enjoyable (and that somehow that joy won't be good enough on a laptop, etc).
So, who wants to blow off $4 on New Avengers #xx when you can get the same issue on the tablet for $1.00? THINK.
That's the main problem with your perception of the device: that all these other companies- such as the publisher of Avengers- is going to cut their revenue & profit throats to support Apple's sales of this Tablet. You can do the math yourself of cutting a $4 sale to a $1 sale (and then think about the volume increase requirements to make up the difference), but I'll simply point again at the media already available via iTunes, where I can't get 75% off of DVD prices to buy the same movie in an e-version, or 75% off the TV show media vs. buying the same show via DVDs, and so on. Why will this media be priced so differently than what is already there?
Understand, I'm not against your dream at all. It would be great to suddenly have access to a very rich world of original, professional, fresh print media at huge discounts. All consumers everywhere would win... right up until the content stopped coming because the print creators went out of business because they couldn't make a profit at 75% off rates that used to be marginally profitable in 2009.
have a color display
