It’s a Tablet. It’s Gorgeous. It’s Costly.

Every time there’s some new hot, heavily hyped gadget from Apple, it takes only a few months for the copycats to crop up. IPod? Zune! IPhone? Android!

The iPad? Well, it came out in March, and the iPad alternatives are just landing in stores now.

Many of them run Google’s Android phone operating system. That’s a shrewd move. Android is mature, polished and free (to the pad makers), and it comes with an existing library of 100,000 apps. Furthermore, any gadget fan who’s used an Android phone will feel instantly at home on the tablet.

In other words, if you make an Android tablet, you can hit the ground running.

The most hotly awaited Android tablet is the Samsung Galaxy Tab, a sleek, sturdy slab, 7.5 by 4.7 by 0.5 inches. The glass front is a 7-inch multitouch screen; the back is off-white plastic.

Samsung sweated the details on this thing. The screen is gorgeous. The touch response is immediate and reliable. The whole thing is superfast and a pleasure to use.

When asked about the onslaught of Android tablets last month, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, scoffed at their size (most are 7 inches diagonal instead of 10 inches, like the iPad). “This size is useless unless you include sandpaper so users can sand their fingers down to a quarter of their size,” he said.

Well, sure, if you’re used to a laptop or an iPad, seven inches isn’t much. You won’t see as much of the map, the e-book or the Web page without scrolling.

But the Galaxy doesn’t feel like a cramped iPad. It feels like an extra-spacious Android phone. And the payoff is huge. The Galaxy is much lighter than the iPad (13 ounces vs. 1.5 pounds), which makes a huge difference when you have to hold it to watch a movie on the plane. And it’s so small you can carry it in a blazer pocket.

You can even slip it into a jeans pocket, although you might walk around looking as if you have a pulled muscle or something. The Galaxy is almost exactly the size of the latest Amazon Kindle — and it makes a great e-book reader, thanks to the Kindle or the Barnes & Noble apps that let you read those companies’ e-books.

The feature list on this thing is eye-popping. This, of course, is the classic Apple-versus-Google “proprietary versus open” argument. Apple controls the hardware, the software and the app store, so everything is consistent, high quality and clean (meaning, among other things, no pornography apps). Google doesn’t monitor what goes into its app store, so the Android ecosystem is unlimited, chaotic and more confusing.

In any case, the Galaxy offers all of Android’s traditional high points, including many features the iPad doesn't have, or doesn't have out of the box. For example, you can customize its nine home screens by placing icons or mini info windows anywhere you like (they don’t have to sit in an organized grid). You can dictate text instead of typing it, or search Google or Google Maps by voice. (On the Galaxy, you can also type using Swype, which I reviewed in July.) You can use Android’s excellent turn-by-turn navigation app — it’s like a car GPS unit with an Imax screen.

There are front- and rear-facing cameras, too — take that, iPad! — with a flash, video, exposure controls and special effects. It’s a little weird to hold up this enormous slate in front of you when you want to take a picture. But it’s also awesome; when have you ever used a camera with a 7-inch screen? You’re practically seeing the enlargement as you frame the shot. It’s a digital photo frame that takes pictures. (The Galaxy stores 16 gigabytes, but also has an SD memory card slot for expansion.)

The Web browser offers the usual two-fingered spread-and-pinch techniques for zooming in and out. Because the Galaxy runs Android 2.2, it can also play Flash videos online (touché, iPad!). Or at least it’s supposed to. After some delay, I got Flash movie trailers and CNet videos to play, but at ESPN.com, the Play Video button just stared at me sullenly. (My Samsung rep says they play fine for him.)

E-mail works well on the 7-inch screen. As usual with Android, though, you process your Gmail in one app, and all other kinds of mail accounts in a separate one. It doesn’t make sense on an Android phone, and it doesn’t make sense here.

As smooth and slick and convenient as the Galaxy is, though, it’s not without its frustrations. When you visit sites like nytimes.com, CNBC.com and Amazon.com, the Galaxy’s browser shows the stripped-down, mobile versions of those sites. According to Samsung, there’s no way to turn that feature off and no way to visit the full-size sites. You can delete the little “m.” in the Web address until you’re blue in the browser, but the Galaxy always puts it right back.

It’s a little odd that you can’t recharge the Galaxy from your laptop’s U.S.B. port. It must be plugged into a power socket.

Another problem: most of the 100,000 apps on the Android store are designed for a phone-size screen, not a tablet. The Galaxy either blows them up, at the expense of clarity, or lets them float in the center of the larger screen with a Texas-size black border.

This problem, of course, was familiar to early iPad adopters: iPhone apps ran on the iPad, but couldn’t exploit the larger screen. But Apple encouraged programmers to come up with iPad-specific versions, and released a software-writing kit to help them along. Google hasn’t done that yet, so it may be awhile before 7-inch Android apps become the norm.

The biggest drawback of the Galaxy, though, may be its price: $600. You could buy two netbooks for that money, or four Kindles —or one 32-gigabyte iPad, with its much larger screen, aluminum body and much better battery life. (The iPad gets 10 hours on a charge; the Galaxy, about 6 hours.)

You can get the Galaxy for $400 if you’re willing to sign a two-year contract for cellular service. All four major American cellphone carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint — will offer it. The Galaxy gets online in Wi-Fi hot spots. But if you want to go online using the cellular airwaves, you’ll pay $20 to $50 a month, depending on the carrier and how much data you expect to use. (Good luck figuring that out. Quick: how many megabytes do you need for 10 Flickr pages?)

You can’t make regular phone calls on this thing. But you can send and receive unlimited text and picture messages (to cellphones) and conduct flaky video calls using an app called Qik. (You can’t make Skype calls, though. Samsung says it’s working on a fix.)

T-Mobile, by the way, wishes to point out the superiority of its deal. If you pay full price ($600), for example, you can sign up for cell service on an à la carte basis — $10 a week or $30 a month, for example — without a two-year ball and chain. And T-Mobile doesn’t charge extra to use the Galaxy as a Wi-Fi hot spot for your other gear, either — a neat, if battery-guzzling trick that would cost you $30 a month extra from, for example, Sprint.

So yes, the dawn of the would-be iPad is upon us. But the Android tablet concept represents more than just a lame effort to grab a slice of tablet hype. As with Android phones, it represents an alternative that’s different enough to justify its existence. You’re buying into a different approach to size, built-in goodies like cameras and GPS, and the more freewheeling Android app store.

With the Samsung Galaxy Tab, you’re also buying delicious speed and highly refined hardware. It’s just a shame that you’re buying all that for $600.

Source: nytimes.com

Metro launches iPad app

National commuter favourite The Metro has launched an iPad app, offering readers bitesize news, sports and showbiz.
The newspaper already has an iPhone app available, launched earlier this year.
The Metro joins other national newspapers, including the Financial Times and Express Newspapers, who have launched iPad apps this year.
In a release, Metro says it was created “with a newspaper in mind, offering digital news in a paper-like experience”.
“It gives readers the chance to swipe between individual headlines and full stories with a single finger, whilst moving between the different sections, including News, Showbiz, Sport, Weird, Music, Film, TV and Tech, using a dual finger swipe,” they say.
The Metro worked with digital design agency Fjord and mobile agency Bluestar, to create the app.

Source:

Developers love iPhone and iPad but are excited about Android's upside

Among mobile developers, the iPhone is still the most favored platform, ahead of Android smart phones. But the future may tilt in the favor of Android, according to a new developer survey by Appcelerator.
Developers see the iPhone and increasingly the iPad as the hot opportunity right now, with their shared iOS operating system coming out on top in seven of ten categories including best app store, biggest market for consumer apps, best devices and best near-term outlook.
But the Android operating system, which placed second in all seven of those categories, came out on top for most capabilities of an OS, most "open" platform and best long-term outlook.
Programmers seem to say that Android has potentially a bigger upside, with its operating system more open and possibly able to span not just phones and tablets but a host of other devices like TVs, set-top boxes and even cars.
The survey not only notes the potential for Android, it also highlights the increasing interest in tablet computers. Developers said they were most interested in developing for the iPhone 90 percent, followed by the iPad (84 percent), Android phones (81 percent) and Android tablets (64 percent).
Interest in the iPhone was up just 3 percentage points from a similar survey in March and the interest in Android phones remains the same from the previous report. But interest in the iPad jumped from 53 percent in March to 84 percent in June while Android tablets, which were not included in previous surveys, did incredibly well despite the fact there are no Android tablets on the market yet.
Taking a step back, it's clear that these four device platforms form the top tier of developer interest, illustrating how Apple and Google are running away with the mobile developer market.
Developer interest falls off markedly after the iPhone and Android devices, with BlackBerry (34 percent) Windows Phone 7 (27 percent) and Sybmian (15 percent) the next most popular platforms. Even with its acquisition by HP, Palm's webOS garnered only 13 percent interest from developers though that number could shoot up if HP lays out ambitious plans to embed webOS in a bunch of devices.
Appcelerator, which offers a platform for making applications, conducted the survey of 2,733 developers from June 15-17.

Source: SFGate

Apple’s iPad Makes Japan Debut

Apple Inc. on May 28 released its new iPad product in Japan, following up on roaring sales of more than 1 million iPads in under one month from their U.S. release date in April.
Some Japanese newspaper publishers, including the Mainichi Shimbun, the Sankei Shimbun, and the Nikkan Sports, are distributing their content via the iPad tablet computer. Many broadcasting companies are also preparing to target the iPad for delivery of their programs and related content, including news reports.
On May 29, the Mainichi Shimbun launched a digital magazine titled “photoJ.” exclusively for iPad users. PhotoJ is a monthly e-publication that costs 350 yen per issue. It delivers a combination of photographs and original feature articles. Subscribers get access to movies, as well as photo slideshows. The Mainichi also plans to sell ads to appear in the digital magazine. To issue the digital magazine, the Mainichi introduced a cross-media publishing system controlled by WoodWing Software of the Netherlands. The U.S. magazine TIME uses the same software to format and deliver its electronic edition for the iPad.
The Sankei has started issuing an electronic edition of its daily paper for iPad users at a price of 1,500 yen per month. By the end of June, the service will not start charging. By making optimal use of the iPad's vivid color display, the resolution of the page images can be raised much higher than that of the company’s existing service for iPhone users. The Sankei says it plans to continue delivering its free electronic edition for the iPhone as well. The Nikkan Sports has started delivering articles and photographs for the iPad, free of charge. Users can also search the sports daily’s news through articles and photographs viewed on the iPad
Some major broadcasting stations are also following the iPad fad. TV Tokyo, a Tokyo-based major TV network, on May 28 began offering an iPad application that displays a summary of its weekly documentary program “Jounetsu-no-Keifu” (The Genealogy of Passion), which traces the background of contemporary celebrities from various walks of life. The Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) has developed an iPad application for browsing news while listening to Internet radio channel OTTAVA, which specializes in classical music. That iPad application is due to be released by mid-June. Osaka-based Mainichi Broadcasting System will start delivering its new TV drama “MM9 ? Monster Magnitude,” for the iPad in July. Users will be able to watch the program on the iPad free of charge, at the same time as the program airs on TV.
Not to miss the boat, the Mainichi, the Sports Nippon and the Nishinippon Shimbun have begun providing daily news content for the “Viewn” newspaper and magazine content service. That service for the iPad is operated by a subsidiary of the cellular phone company Softbank Corp, which operates iPhone services in Japan.

Source: .pressnet.or.jp

Big names reach out to grab iPad opportunities

Stephen Fry, BMW, The FT and Ministry of Sound are among the first major publishers and brands to roll out UK iPad apps ahead of the device’s much-anticipated European launch tomorrow.

Stephen Fry, BMW, The FT and Ministry of Sound are among the first major publishers and brands to roll out UK iPad apps ahead of the device’s much-anticipated European launch tomorrow.
Apple, which shifted 1m iPads in its first month on sale in the US, has garnered support from key publishers looking at the tablet media player as the next evolution in online content distribution.
Publishers are preparing to experiment with a number of business models including launching ad-funded, sponsored and premium iPad apps. But they also say app developers have upped their prices as they become inundated with short-deadline work as brands rush to create content for the platform.
Broadcaster and technophile Stephen Fry has launched a series of iPad apps, including one for his blog, a tie-up with Harper Collins and Framestore CFC for animated readings of Oscar Wilde short stories, and another featuring quotations from Fry himself.
SamFry, the company that manages Stephen Fry’s website, is working with The Digital Tribe to sell ad spots around his content.
Andrew Sampson, joint-MD of SamFry, said, “The iPad presents a great opportunity. With these apps we’re looking to push the boundaries with the Apple API and show where you can go with it.”
The Financial Times hopes to win younger readers by making its premium content free for two months via its iPad app after signing a sponsorship deal with luxury Swiss watch-maker Hublot.
Steve Pinches, FT’s lead product development manager, said, “We’ve been live for a few days now and have seen a fair number of downloads from the US [where the app has also launched]. The sponsorship model slots quite nicely into our paid content strategy.”
The Telegraph is also looking to launch on the iPad but is wary of simply migrating its iPhone app to the device. Head of mobile Maani Safa said, “The business model should take into account that people are more likely to spend more time on the iPad than iPhones, and advertisers are willing to pay for that.
“The sponsorship model on the iPad is definitely something we’re looking at, but I don’t know whether or not we’ll go for it,” he added. “I think a lot of publishers have simply tried to replicate the newspaper experience on the iPad. This gives you less content in a less intuitive manner, so we’re trying to provide a completely new experience that has nothing to do with the web.”
Magazine publishers are also looking to launch on the iPad. Dennis Publishing has appointed digital agency PixelMags to launch an iPad app for its Apple-specialist title Mac User. Paul Lomax, chief technology officer at Dennis, said, “We’re looking at doing something for most of our titles. With some we’ll go into more depth, so there might be more than one app for some brands.”
He added, however, that because publishers have been rushing to launch apps, “Finding people to work on iPad apps at a reasonable rate has been a bit of a challenge.”
This Friday’s nma Live will focus on new content and ad opportunities for brands brought about by the iPad. See nmalive.co.uk for details.

Source: newmediaage

Apple: More Than Two Million iPads Sold

Apple continues to sell iPads at a rapid pace, breaking the two million mark the same weekend the device debuted in the UK, Canada and seven other countries for at least $1 billion in sales. The company is bragging that it took less than 60 days to sell that many but that claim is skewed by pre-orders that were made weeks before the iPad actually went on sale in the U.S. April 3. Still, it’s an impressive number for a new device, especially one that starts at $499. For those keeping track, it took 28 days for Apple to claim one million sales; by comparison, it took 74 days to sell one million iPhones.

Unlike earlier milestone announcements, Apple left out other data some of us are interested in—like the number of app downloads and the number of downloads from the iBookstore. This time, all the company said is that there are more than 5,000 new iPad apps—the same number it offered on May 3. That’s about 2.5 percent of the 200,000-plus apps approved for the iTunes store. It’s not clear if it includes iPhone apps optimized for iPad as opposed to iPhone apps that will run on iPad Steve Jobs may well offers some more details, as has often been his custom, when he appears at WWDC with what is expected to be a launch date for the iPhone 4G.
Second question: What would the sales number be if Apple kept iPads in supply across the U.S.? And how fast would the iPhone break one million if Apple announced a Verizon version?

Source: Paidcontent.org

10 Things We Love And Hate About The iPad

1. The iPad really is a gorgeous device and using it is a true pleasure.

The display is incredibly beautiful, and both text and graphics look very nice on it. Web pages are fun to zoom around. It's zippy. And the battery life is more than enough. The iPad user interface -- in some senses, a sized-up version of the iPhone, but with new techniques -- was really done well. The natural textures, which grace the UI in a few places, are a nice touch.

2. But, we're still not really sure what we're supposed to use this beautiful thing for.

After testing out a bunch of apps, and playing some games, watching a few minutes of a Netflix movie, surfing the Web, and reading a few chapters of an e-book, we had a bit of a feeling of, "Now what?" Sure, that's going to happen with any new gadget. But in this case, for something we'd been anticipating for so long, we still felt like we were missing bigger marching orders. No doubt over time, developers and Apple will make some really interesting, useful applications for it. And, of course, the Web is great to have. We think we'll definitely use the iPad on a regular basis, and probably won't have to worry about it just collecting dust. But we're going to need better things to do than using the Kayak app to look up prices for plane tickets we've already purchased -- our sad excuse for "product testing" last night.

3. Meanwhile, the amount of media already available for the iPad is impressive.

It's clear that in the early stages, this is going to be more of a media consumption device than a productivity tool. (Though there are some cool media creation apps already, such as painting and music apps.) So it's very nice that Apple and developers have loaded the App Store with actual substantial media apps, including ABC's and Netflix's. And, of course, Apple's iTunes music and video store.

4. But the iBookstore is still a ghost town compared to Amazon's Kindle store.

Apple's e-reader app looks nice, and its built-in store is an advantage over Amazon's rival Kindle app, which boots you into the Web browser to buy books in a less-optimized environment. But so far, we're not impressed by the selection in the iBookstore. None of the books we wanted to buy this weekend were available. No "Rework" by the 37Signals guys. (Its publisher, Random House, still isn't onboard.) No Tokyo guidebooks for our upcoming vacation. (No real "Travel" section at all, actually.) No "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain. No "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis. (Okay, that's not out for the Kindle, either.) No "Liar's Poker" by Michael Lewis. Maybe we're looking for the wrong books. But we're not finding what we're looking for. So for now, we'll keep shopping with Amazon.

5. My iPad just killed my MacBook. And my iMac is the only Mac I need now.

I personally don't like laptops, so this isn't going to fly with everyone. I've always been a fan of desktop computers, which have bigger and better displays, typically cost less for better performance, and have faster hard drives. And now that I have an iPad to carry around, the 27-inch iMac on my desk is the only "real" computer I need. Specifically, I don't think I need a laptop anymore, and when my MacBook eventually burns out, I probably won't replace it. The iPad will be good enough for all the "work" stuff I need from the laptop -- email, Web, light text-editing, light photo editing, even capturing pictures from my digital camera. And obviously all the "fun" stuff I need from the laptop -- watching videos, distracting myself on the plane, etc. I don't think the iPad is a laptop killer for everyone. Apple's MacBook line is not going away -- plenty of people still prefer notebooks to desktops. But it probably will be the end of laptop buying for me.

6. But, hey Apple... Where's the alarm clock?

There's a lot of stuff missing from the iPad. We don't really care that Apple left off the Stocks and Weather apps from the iPhone. But we're a little confused as to why it left out the World Clock app. Besides being a cool app to have, it's home to the all-important iPhone alarm clock. So there's no alarm clock on the iPad. What the heck, guys? Sure, if you always have an iPhone around, perhaps you won't need a separate alarm on the iPad. But it would be nice to at least have the option. Especially because we think a lot of people will keep their iPad near their bed. An executive from Vertu, the luxury phone line from Nokia, once told us that the alarm clock is the third most-used feature on a phone, after calls and messaging. Maybe that's changed over the last few years, but it seems like a feature the iPad should at least offer one. It's especially lousy because an alarm clock is one of the few apps that a third-party developer could not offer very well: Only Apple apps are allowed to run in the background on the iPad (so far; this may change with a software update). You wouldn't want to be stuck using an iPad alarm clock app from a third-party developer that you were required to remember to leave running all night.

7. Already, developers are building some REALLY cool stuff for it.

Our favorite example of how the iPad is a visitor FROM THE FUTURE is the Scrabble app by Electronic Arts. Specifically, we're impressed by its multiplayer mode: It's built to take advantage of the fact that several populations have incredibly high iPhone penetration. Players can download a free Tile Rack app for their iPhone, and use it to store their tile rack of letters for the game they're playing on the iPad.

8. But the missing Facebook app left us frustrated.

Facebook is the most popular iPhone app but it's not on the iPad. That left us feeling that something big was missing.And we're not the only ones who were looking for it: The no. 9 best-selling paid iPad app right now is some crappy $3 (!) app called Facebook Ultimate! for sale by someone named Dilraba Ibrahim. That person definitely had a nice weekend.Yes, the iPhone app could work on the iPad, but it looks crappy. Yes, Facebook.com works in the iPad's Safari browser, but we kept getting logged out and kept clicking the wrong things. Very frustrating. The iPad -- like the iPhone, and the Web -- needs its own user interface. We understand these things take time, and better late and awesome than early and buggy.But it seems between this and infrequent updates to Facebook's iPhone app, the company has dropped the ball a bit in mobile. The Facebook app for the iPhone has an incredible 31 million monthly active users, or more than a third of the roughly 75 million iPhones and iPod touch devices on the market. So we and many others will be excited to use it when it launches.

9. It's going to be a great companion for watching TV.

People -- especially Americans -- still watch a disgusting amount of TV. This is a perfect place for the iPad to be a complementary device. If there's actual stuff that you can do on your iPad to enhance the TV experience, it could be neat. For example, we'd love to be able to play the same "Wheel of Fortune" game that's on TV, and see if we're really as smart as we think. Or for discussion and commentary, this is an opportunity for a startup like Hot Potato to build a really great app for discussing what you're watching on TV. Twitter is a solid start, but not ideal. This probably isn't a situation for which you're going to want to watch other video on your iPad. Though maybe a few other angles of a baseball game, if synced perfectly, could be cool.

10. But, yes, typing is a pain in the butt. And the screen is full of fingerprints.

When you touch a screen all day, obviously, it's going to pick up some fingerprints. But even with obsessive hand washing, ours looks really marked up. We suppose this would be much worse if Apple didn't include a "fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating" on the display. And it's not so bad when the display is actually on. Mostly a it-looks-creepy-when-it's-turned-off thing. But we're going to need to invest in a nice cleaning cloth. Especially if this thing is going to live anywhere near the living room or kitchen. As feared, typing on the iPad -- especially in portrait mode -- is not very fun. Especially if you're holding it up with both hands and trying to type with your thumbs. The keys in the middle of the keyboard are especially tricky to reach. But this is a tradeoff we're happy to make. Just as on the iPhone, the extra screen space (and lighter weight of the device) is well worth the extra clumsiness when typing. We don't think we'll be writing very much on the iPad, and we're happy to have a lighter device and bigger screen to read the Web and play games with, even if it means typing.

Source: Business Insider (SAI)

Apple App Store Analysis: Here's The Difference Between The iPad And The iPhone

What's the difference between Apple's new iPad tablet and its iPhone?

Based on a quick analysis of the apps people are buying on the devices, it's pretty simple: The iPhone and iPod touch are for games. The iPad is for a lot more. And people are spending a lot more (per app) on iPad apps than iPhone apps.

• 82% of the top 50 iPhone/iPod touch apps are Games, versus 36% of the top 50 iPad apps.

• The top iPad app categories among the top 50 are Games (36%), Content (28%, includes news, video), Productivity (20%), and Utilities (16%, includes weather).

• The top iPhone app categories among the top 50 are Games (82%, includes gag apps) and Utilities (18%, includes weather, social networking).

• The average top-25 paid iPhone app was $1.51, versus $5.79 on the iPad (almost 4X difference).

(How'd we get these numbers? We looked at the top 25 paid and top 25 free apps for each system, thus the "top 50." We also recategorized some apps that we thought were tagged with the wrong category. And we took some liberties merging "games" and "entertainment" apps, etc.)

To be sure: Obviously, there's a lot more going on peoples' iPads and iPhones than just the apps they are buying. App Store sales stats are hardly the same thing as device activity stats, and we'd love to look at those. No doubt, people are using the iPad a lot for its web browser and email capabilities, and the iPhone to make calls and send text messages. But we think the App Store records are a good directional indication of what's happening.

Source: Business Insider (SAI)

Publishers become animated as the iPad arrives in London

Apple’s iPad might not officially launch in the UK until 28 May, but as anyone not living under a rock in the last month will be able to tell you; the iPad is here and already walks among us.
It’s hard to believe that pre-orders of the touch-screen, tablet-style computer only went on sale today.
Haymarket Brand Media’s new desk has had a steady stream of invites from newspaper and magazine publishers keen to demonstrate their apps for weeks.
The electronic handheld device also dominated proceedings at the PPA Magazine Conference last month. The annual event quite literally began and ended with talk of the iPad, padded out by the obligatory soul-searching.
Representatives from the country’s largest magazine publishers simply couldn’t get enough of it.
Pre-eminent business hack Juan Senor admitted carrying six iPads into the conference in his opening address, and called its arrival nothing less than “revolutionary”.
He went on to warn publishers that Apple’s entire business model depends entirely on the tech giant being able to leverage publishers’ content.
Andrew Walmsley, founder of the now defunct digital agency i-Level called it a “significant step” and believes over time the industry will witness “an erosion, or rather shift,” to new such platforms.
David Rowan, editor of Wired, gamely reminded us the iPad is “not going to save publishing”, but added the industry didn’t need saving anyway.
He preferred to view its arrival as yet another platform to reach more consumers on, and one that could help solve some distribution problem areas.
He also admitted to being excited by the multimedia aspect of the device, with its audio and visual and GPS opportunities that could offer new ways to interact with readers/audiences.
But a “magazine on steroids” approach was warned against by Senor, among others, who suggested consumers will respond best to titles that manage to recreate the magazine experience, and offer readers time and space in their digital digest. A far cry from the all-singing and all-dancing model Sports Illustrated is currently demonstrating in the US.
There was general agreement that the first generation iPad represented just the first step in what will become a very competitive market, but concern was raised over the power Apple would have if iTunes, or its equivalent, became the only distribution outlet for publishers.
More than 50 tablet-type devices are expected to launch this year, and most will not have the iPad’s purposefully inbuilt shortcomings, like not being able to use Flash, having no USB ports, or no camera.
Barry McIlheney, PPA’s new chief executive charged with reigniting both the trade body itself and a deflated industry, admitted he’d never known such a device cause so much excitement – and the former Smash Hits editor has been around the block more than once.
‘Expert advice’ came from the American contingent, after all they could boast almost a month’s real-life experience.
Joan Sola, president of Zinio International, ensured he had everyone’s attention when he reported that the digital magazine services provider had launched 2,500 magazines onto the iPad since 3 April. Sales of any UK content following the launch was reported to have doubled since the move.
A cynic might suggest the iPad’s ability to hijack the magazine conference so completely, smacks of desperation from an industry blighted by comprehensive slumps in copy sales and advertising revenues.
But who could blame them? John Zieser, chief development officer at American women’s powerhouse Meredith, reported how initial experience and research had found that far from taking away from print, iPad adoption had served to boost magazine pick-up.
It was also mooted that the arrival of the iPad could take the onus away from digital circulation figures, a development that would prove quite timely for News International as it prepares to erect its paywall.
One delegate pointed out that publishers had been working in close co-operation with the global paper/forest industry for years to ensure the healthy replenishment of resources.“Had anyone given any consideration to the environmental impact of the tablet?” she asked: Silence all round.
Regardless, the iPad is coming.
And with more than one million devices sold in the first month in the US; and with data compiled by Yahoo confirming that 10% of iPad traffic is currently coming from outside the US, despite not having launched anywhere else yet, it looks set to make a significant splash.

Source: MediaWeek

Apple iPads hurt democracy: Obama

President Obama, who ran the most tech-savvy presidential campaign in history, took a surprisingly hard line against Apple products Sunday in a graduation speech that touched on the importance of education in a world being revolutionized by technology.
"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama told graduates at historically black Hampton University in Virginia on Sunday.
"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you. It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."
Obama is certainly the most tech-savvy president we've had. His presidential campaign used YouTube, mass texting, Facebook and blogs to energize grass-roots support in an unprecedented way. During the campaign, Obama was photographed using an iPhone (he now uses a BlackBerry), and his wife, Michelle, said she bought the family MacBooks so they could stay in touch while he was on the road, an Apple fan site gleefully noted.
All of which makes it surprising that Obama not only suggested he didn't know how to use iPods and iPads in his speech, but also criticized them for turning users into a powerless audience that consumes instead of creates.
Obama's remarks echo those of some technology critics when the iPad went on sale in April. Canadian tech blogger Cory Doctorow called the device "infantilizing," and media critic Jeff Jarvis said it was controlling consumers by turning them back into a passive audience. Both dislike that the company sells only Apple-made applications, instead of using open-source software.
"That is why media companies and advertisers are embracing [the iPad] so fervently," Jarvis wrote, "because they think it returns us all to their good old days when we just consumed, we didn't create, when they controlled our media experience and business models and we came to them."
Obama's campaign website ran on open-source software, but his swipe at Apple is probably more about Apple products' role in channeling the 24-hour media culture he often criticizes than a philosophical debate about technology.
By blaming gadgets for turning information into entertainment, Obama expands his ongoing criticism of the 24-hour news industry, which he says spreads misinformation and polarizes the public in its quest for higher ratings.
"With so many voices clamoring for attention on blogs, on cable, on talk radio, it can be difficult at times to sift through it all; to know what to believe; to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not," he said in the speech, encouraging graduates to use their education to arm themselves against misinformation.

Source: Yahoo

Steve Jobs reportedly says the iPad's ability to print 'will come'

Steve Jobs reportedly replied to an Apple customer's e-mail, saying that printing would eventually make its way to the iPad.
According to a report in MacRumors, Jobs responded to a customer who asked him why the ability to print wasn't available.
"Why no printing on the iPad? What gives?" the customer asked, according to the report.
Jobs' simple reply: "It will come."
Unfortunately, Apple's chief executive didn't give a time frame on how long it would be before the feature makes its way to the iPad. But one thing is certain: It should be coming sooner rather than later.
The ability to print is arguably one of the most glaring omissions in the iPad. Those attempting to print documents or e-mails will quickly find that there's no way to communicate with a printer. And although Apple has stayed relatively tight-lipped about the matter, it's becoming increasingly likely that the ability to print will come to the tablet. At this point, it's a matter of timing.
But before the rumor mill starts up, it's important to take caution with the MacRumors report. Jobs has been more frequently responding to customer e-mails lately, but there's still no easy way to authenticate the e-mail exchange. So like with anything Apple has yet to announce, a certain level of skepticism should be maintained until the feature is officially confirmed by the company.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

Source: Don Reisinger