Category Archives: ipad

Gizmodo: Apple’s New Subscription Model Is Evil

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"The fact is, that Apple's new subscriptions—while justifiably wrapped in the smooth, glossy coat of user-friendliness—are a major power grab that inserts the company between basically every content provider and every iPad and iPhone user. You know what? That's fine. That's how ecosystems like this work. Think of all the products and services that exist and feed off of into Twitter and Facebook. Apple should take a cut. Just not an amount so significant it might kill the people who have helped make the iPad experience so great."

WSJ.com: Apple Antitrust Issues Raised by Subscription-Service Terms

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"Apple Inc.'s new subscription service could draw antitrust scrutiny, according to law professors. ... Publishers, for example, might claim that Apple dominates the market for consumer tablet computers and that it has allegedly used that commanding position to restrict competition. Apple, in turn, might define the market to include all digital and print media, and counter that any publisher not happy with Apple's terms is free to still reach its customers through many other print and digital outlets."

Newsonomics: Apple’s “New” Policy: Looking Beyond Digital Circ Dollars to Ads & Data

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Ken Doctor: "there’s little surprising in the Apple announcement. After all, what it said publicly is what it has said privately to news and magazine companies for months. Your old business is still your business, but the new business — when we help you get it — is our business, too. For Apple, that’s a logical position, and the logic is backed up by a big number: 160 million. That’s the approximate number of iTunes account holders, a number 40 times bigger than the largest newspapers in the U.S. and Europe. You want access to our customers, Apple says, pay us."

GigaOm: Apple Gives Media Companies a Carrot, Tied to a Big Stick

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Mathew Ingram: "[Apple's new iOS subscriptions policy] leaves publishers to ask themselves: How much is it worth to let Apple handle your sales for you? ... Market dominance is a powerful thing, however, and so far, Apple has the customers that publishers want to reach. For better or worse, they’ll have to submit to the stick if they want access to that carrot."

Adaptive Path: 5 impacts of Apple’s app store subscription model on experience design

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Brandon Schauer: "But what does the change mean for experiences and experience design? 1. Designing a good trialing experience will be critical; 2. Design services, not apps; 3. Loyalty is the critical metric for improving experiences; 4. Engagement drives loyalty; 5. You can make it all work together."

Telegraph Blogs: Apple announces App Store subscription service

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Shane Richmond: "To put [Apple's subscriptions policy] into perspective, here’s what a newspaper pays to a newsagent to sell its papers: about 28 per cent. You can argue all you like about whether or not it’s fair that Apple takes a similar cut – and American papers, who traditionally rely a lot more on subscriptions might be more concerned. What does it mean for a service like Spotify, however? They will now have to offer the ability to subscribe within the app at the same price as – or less than – the £9.99 that its subscribers currently pay. Will they raise prices or take the hit themselves?"

Nieman Journalism Lab: What Apple’s new subscription policy means for news: new rules, new incentives, new complaints

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"At first glance, this is exactly what a lot of publishers were fearing: Apple setting itself up as a toll-taker on news orgs’ road to a new business model. ... For publishers who had been counting on a new rush of tablet revenue to support a lagging print model, it’s disappointing to learn that, in exchange for the convenience of a “Buy” button in their iPad app, they’ll have to give up 30 percent of the revenue it generates."

Nieman Journalism Lab: Who is The Daily trying to reach? What problem is it trying to solve?

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"While News Corp. may be home to properties like The Wall Street Journal, the design language of The Daily is surprisingly tabloid: big headlines, big pictures, short stories, and a populist feel. The sections — with “Gossip” given a high second billing to news — seem much more New York Post than WSJ. Is that the right choice for iPads, which (at least at the moment) disproportionately attract a richer, more content-sensitive audience than something like the Post would? My gut instinct was that The Daily would aim more at a high-end audience than it seems to be."

Waxy.org: The Daily: Indexed

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"Anybody else think it's weird that The Daily, News Corp's new iPad-only magazine, posts almost every article to their official website... but with no index of the articles to be found? They spent $30M on it, but apparently forgot a homepage! So I went ahead and made one for them! Introducing, The Daily: Indexed... Frankly, I'm also very curious about the legal implications. My understanding is that linking to public news articles is unquestionably legal, and I believe that right should never be discouraged. It's also worth noting that Google's slowly indexing all the articles too, and search engines aren't blocked in their robots.txt file."