Breaking: Apple announces digital magazine subscription model

Apple announced the terms of their new digital magazine subscription model yesterday in an agreement with app developer and digital publisher Texterity, which they posted on their web site last night. It clears up a number of concerns to the publishing industry, and finally clears the hurdle for existing subscribers of print content not having to pay again for a digital version of the same magazine.

From the Texterity Web Post:

Publishers can sell print subscriptions, and offer “digital companion” access through an app as long as there is no additional fee for those subscribers. It’s a way to offer another incentive for print subs to stay loyal and engaged.

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iPad Usage Survey Results offers a few surprises, and confirms the rapid growth and success of the device

Two-thirds of iPad owners use their iPads 1-5 hours a day.

via businessinsider.com

Click through to Business Insider’s survey findings for the latest insights in how the iPad is being used, or read on to check out Polymash’s favorites with some surprising statistics:

iPad iOS 4.2 update delayed by 2 weeks, originally scheduled for Nov 11 [UPDATE]

iPad home screen in iOS 4.2

UPDATE: It appears that due to a serious last minute WIFI connection issue the iPad’s iOS 4.2 release, planned for Friday November 11,  will be delayed, and the forseeable impact is that the public release will be postponed by 2 weeks. The connection issues have been posted on Macrumors forum (here and here) as well as on Twitter and Apple’s internal discussion boards.

Hopefully this will still mean a pre-Thanksgiving launch, and we are looking forward to long awaited iPad features such as

• Multitasking (AKA fast application switching),
• Airprint and Airplay features.
• Homepage and Spotlight upgrades
• Folders
• Widgets
• Introduction of Gamecenter

For a nice walkthrough of the features, and to find out exactly what is included in the upcoming iPad release, visit our friends at TiPb and click here for the full feature list

iPad and Android Tablet and iPad apps: five monetization strategies

Subscription workarounds

In-app single purchases

Advertising

Location-based offerings

Social media sharing and aggregation

via emediavitals.com

Click throught for a nice summary post from Prescott Shible’s blog on current digital magazine monetization options.

I fully agree with the fact that the biggest current challenge is offering robust subscription models for tablet magazines, but also think that with upcoming solutions from Adobe and other major tool providers, the negative aspects of in app purchases will soon be addressed, in terms of being able to provide tracking intelligence of in app user activities and behaviors.

Key Points from a Harrison Group Survey on Tablet Technologies and Digital Publishing

Unlike other new technologies, this revolution is not about the technology itself, but rather, about the role that content plays in people’s lives

via prnewswire.com

The above is my favorite quote from the Harrison Survey on the impact that the iPad and other tablet devices are having on the digital publishing and technology landscape in general. I also thought it interesting that the “early adopter” persona / stigma is in fact changing:

“Early adopters of eReading are more likely to see themselves as fashionable, playful, family-focused and kind, as opposed to the technology and leadership orientation of early adopters in prior technological revolutions”

Other Key Points:

• Tablet users spend 50% more time reading magazines, 75% more time reading newspapers, and 25% more time reading books.
• Accelerated estimates of 20 million tablets sold in 2011, with 13% of all consumers expressing interest in purchasing a tablet in the next 12 months.
• Inevitability of tablets as the delivery mechanism for digital magazines
• Comfort with digital payment systems that debit accounts
• Multi function tablet devices instead of single purpose e-readers
• Continued privacy concerns and acknowledgment of the importance solutions in that space

Sports Illustrated: Cost-cutting has hindered iPad app

If you’re a regular reader of the Sports Illustrated (SI) publication for the iPad, you may have noticed something unusual / different in the latest issue. The SI iPad edition is now only viewable in landscape mode, no longer supporting portrait mode as it did in previous issues.

via tuaw.com

I am amazed at how much negative feedback there is for iPad digital magazines that do not offer a way for existing subscribers to receive the iPad content free, or at least for a substantially discounted amount.

The many 100′s of one star ratings dwarf and seem to negate the few good reviews the magazine may have received for interactive content features, and I wonder if this is leading to reducing production costs already and only supporting one orientation.

Sports Illustrated is not the only one suffering, Wired Magazine, The New Yorker, Fortune, Times, the list goes on with overwhelmingly bad reviews.

While the reading experiences are compelling, the lack of subscription business models are really hurting the potential of this entire medium, and I do hope that Apple, the publishing industry and tool providers can come up with a solution, soon…

Click through to read the rest of Matt’s Tinsley’s article…

RE: A Massive War Is Approaching As The Tablet Market Cannot Sustain Six Separate Platforms

Can you hear that? It’s the sound of war. Better choose your side soon, too. The tablet wars are going to get nasty.

Apple’s army is prepped, already backed by over 3 million zealous iPad owners. But the Google Android horde is quickly banding together and will soon offer countless weapons from several major CE houses and dozens of smaller camps. Google is also quietly forming the stealthy Chrome OS platoon that will likely enter the battle a bit late, but shouldn’t be forgotten, ether.

Then there’s the suit & tie brigade with their trusty BlackBerry holstered on their hips, ready to be tethered to the coming BlackPad. Don’t forget about the wildcard: The HP-produced, webOS-powered PalmPad no doubt has a couple of tricks, enough to put up a decent fight. Then there’s the battle-tested Windows that might still be able to fire a few direct shots.

via crunchgear.com

I fully agree that this situation makes it important for content creators to be careful about tying themselves to a single platform.

“Author Once, publish for multiple channels” would be my recommendation to developers…

However the consensus RE Apple’s iPad is that it will be the premier tablet device for the next 2 years at least, and I am not sure that this prediction factors in further product developments and improvements Apple will no doubt introduce, there is even the possibility of a more powerful and fully featured Apple hardware version in the future.

Personally I believe iOS devices and Apple in general will own this space for the foreseeable future….

Apple looking at dual-mode touchscreen desktops and laptops

With Mac OS X and iOS both sharing a lot of underlying code, and touchscreen interfaces becoming more popular, there is certainly reason to believe that Apple could leverage an iOS-like touchscreen interface for future computers. Patently Apple recently discovered a patent application filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization earlier this year, which reveals that Apple has considered how both desktop and laptop computers could switch from a more traditional desktop UI best suited for use with a keyboard and mouse to a UI geared for touch input. Such machines could use a sort of hybrid between Mac OS X and iOS, switching UI layers for the most appropriate context.

via arstechnica.com

Two Biggest Tech Disappointments Of 2009

A post on ReadWrite web today outlines the “Top 10 Failures of 2009“, and the top 2 are definitely my biggest disappointments also.

Where are the Tablets?
I was hugely excited about various tablet concepts to the point of swooning every time the rumor mill turned, and having been an early adapter of Boxee and streaming net content to your large home theater TV flat screen, I bought into some of the concepts of a flat Apple or Crunchpad tablet becoming the new  couch surfing, home media center, ueber iPhone, controller, e-reader, kindle killer gadget to own.

I’m still excited by the prospect, but Michael Arrington‘s “Crunch Pad”, originally outsourced to Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan’s India company called “Fusion Garage“, evaporated at the 11th pre-launch hour, and is now relabeled  “JooJoo” as part of a completely disastrous falling out between Michael and Chandrasekar. It will likely be rendered irrelevant by years of litigation that is sure to follow the acrimonious, rapid and reality TV worthy meltdown of the US vs. India partners involved in this promising project. Rising from the ashes is not the only thing that has gone up, so has the price. (video on engadget for a high level review)

Jolie O’Dell writes in her original ReadWriteWeb post entitled “Top 10 Failures of 2009“:

All we wanted was a $200-500 flat piece of glass and plastic with some fancy gizmodgery inside so we could look at the Internet from the comfort of our couches. And what did we get? Rumors, Photoshopped gadget porn, promises – lies, all lies. We’d have been better off if we’d spent those months drawing the Yahoo! home page on an Etch-A-Sketch.

Image by Photo Giddy via Flickr

And while fresh Apple tablet rumors resurface every 3 months, all these rumors have done is to move dates from the originally expected mid 2009 time-frame into late 2010, which to me places Apple into a reactionary rather than visionary category, and by which time larger home media market shifts will dilute any innovation, novelty or wow factor.

Wipe-Out: Google Wave

I very much connected with that the web has come a long way since email, which now is 40 years old. The concept with Google Wave was to introduce a new metaphor for communication, incorporating all the collaboration successes and phenomenons of the last couple of decades. The merging of email with forums, wikis, micro blogging, real-time content generation just made so much sense.

Image via Wikipedia

The reality hits home hard, there are few use cases, waves are difficult to manage, and the marriage of asynchronous versus synchronous communication methods in the same tool, and within the same UI, just simply does not work. Is it because the UI is not usable, or is it because there is a lack of use cases? My own hypothesis is that at the center of usability there has to be usefulness, and this is where wave falls short.

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• First impressions of the JooJoo tablet (seattlepi.com)
• Fusion Garage JooJoo Tablet Hands-On [Joojoo] (gizmodo.com)
• Hands On With the JooJoo, Formerly Known as CrunchPad (wired.com)
• Joo Joo tablet maker says Michael Arrington had ‘flair for the dramatic’ (telegraph.co.uk)