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Apple iPad
Publisher has not decided on a price for digital versions or how advertising will work

Apple and its turtleneck-wearing CEO Steve Jobs have a long history of marketing and selling products that are more expensive than competing offerings of similar specs; its customers happily pay the extra money for the pleasure of having the Apple logo on their product. The electronics giant also has a long history of releasing some of the most iconic and popular devices around such as the iPod and iPhone. The next “it device” from Apple is the new iPad.

Reading is certainly going to be a big part of the iPad's allure for customers. Along with digital versions of new books, there will also be digital copies of periodicals like newspapers and magazines. The New York Times will have a digital versions of its newspaper on the iPad and magazine publisher Condé Nast has announced that it will be producing digital version of some of its most popular magazines for the iPad.

The Condé Nast magazines for the iPad will include Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Glamour. The first of the digital magazines to hit the iPad will be GQ with its April issue.Wired and Vanity Fair will launch digital versions in June, with The New Yorker and Glamour coming in the summer with no specific date yet announced. Condé Nast is still mulling over the issue of pricing for the digital versions of the magazines as well as approaches to offering advertising.

Condé Nast editorial director Thomas J. Wallace said, "We need to know a little bit more about what kind of a product we can make, how consumers will respond to it, what the distribution system will be."

Wallace points out that Wired has already been working on a digital versions of the magazine with Adobe. Other than Wired, all of the other publications will be developed internally by Condé Nast. The publications will be sold through iTunes during the test phase with Wired also being offered via other formats.

Condé Nast Digital president Sarah Chubb said, "What we’re looking at right now is what kind of ad units for a phone and iPad would optimize the experience for a consumer. As an example, if you’re a fashion retailer or a fashion advertiser who also has an e-commerce store, how can we make the simple fact that you can click through to an item and buy it kind of great? How do you romance it a little bit more?"

Apple officially unveiled its latest new offering called the iPad in January of 2010 calling the product "magical" -- starts at $499 for non-3G versions. Prices quickly escalate for more storage and 3G connectivity all the way up to $829 if you want 3G and 64GB of storage.

Apple also pulled the wraps off a new digital bookstore along with the iPad that single handedly gave publishers the upper hand with rival Amazon. Apple agreed to prices for digital books that were as high as $14.99 each when Amazon was often offering the same books at $9.99 each. Publishers like Hachette went after Amazon to allow similar pricing on digital books shortly after the iPad was unveiled.

Some skeptics, like Bill Gates, have said that they believe the iPad may yet turn out to be the biggest miss the company has offered. Many would wonder if the skeptics recall the Apple TV device.

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By StevoLincolnite on 3/1/2010 11:39:36 AM , Rating: 1
3... 2... 1...

Let the Apple trolling and flaming begin!

***

The biggest issue I have with all current E-book readers (Including iPad and Amazones E-Reader) - Is simply price.

I guess we have awhile before cheaper competing alternatives are released, I have no desire for Wireless, or internal storage etc'.

I would be happy if it could just read off USB or Flash Cards and feature a back-light that can be turned on and off. (Think of the older monochrome/Grey scale gameboy screens but with a switchable back light?)

Plus, the price of the digital books is no where cheap enough, what these company's need to understand is that it costs almost bugger-all to distribute something digitally in comparison to a packaged product, and hence copying it is also cheaper, hence those cost savings should be passed onto the consumer.

I guess I'm dreaming though for lower prices any time soon. :(




RE: .
By reader1 on 3/1/10, Rating: -1
RE: .
By 3minence on 3/1/2010 2:43:06 PM , Rating: 3
The cost of digital content will kill the Kindle and iPad if publishers aren't careful. To pay more for the digital version then the hard copy? Count me out! If I buy a hard copy book or magazine, I can pass it to my family and friends to read, or trade it in at the used book store for store credit. But I won't be so quick to lend my eReader to others. The electronic version is not as flexible as the hard copy.

I don't see what the publishers are doing. Getting people to switch to electronic versions is in their favor. Say goodbye to used book stores (and possibly public libraries). They don't have to pay for paper to turn into books, printers to print the text, trucks to transport the books, etc. I would think they would price them lower to get people to switch, then raise prices once you've gotten them dependent on e-versions.

As it currently stands, I don't see any advantage for me to buy the electronic version of anything when I can still get the hard copy.


RE: .
By Solandri on 3/1/2010 4:29:17 PM , Rating: 3
They don't want digital publication to succeed, at least not yet. They're too afraid of the piracy bogeyman to give up print media, so they're doing everything they can to keep everyone bound to printed books and newspapers/magazines. They're like the music industry back in the 1980s and 1990s which was in denial that their products are fundamentally software -- the media doesn't matter, just the data does. The music industry tried to kill off MP3s and digital music players, and consequently lost a good chunk of control over the digital distribution market to iTunes because someone else was willing to do what they didn't want to happen. (Actually, Napster paved the way, but did so illegally.)

So the print media companies are doing what they can to stall the migration of print media to a completely digital format. They think given enough time they can come up with a DRM system which will let them protect their software from copying as if it were hardware. So for the time being, they price the digital versions to discourage people from buying them, so that customers will remain paper-bound until they feel they're ready. If they take too long, I suspect something like web-based magazines and book publishing will simply replace them.

The real solution would seem to be something the computer software industry settled on in the late 1980s. Just sell your software. Yes there will be piracy, but most customers are honest. You'll lose more money to lost customers frustrated at your attempts to protect your software, than if you just sell it without protection. Aside from some games, that industry pretty much gave up on DRM after trying it in the 1970s and early 1980s. (Although there has been a resurgence since the Internet opened up the possibility of online real-time validation.)


RE: .
By mcnabney on 3/1/2010 11:43:37 PM , Rating: 3
The high price of eBooks has turned me off to whole medium.

Back to the library I go...


Child workers
By damianrobertjones on 3/1/2010 11:55:56 AM , Rating: 1
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-Child-Labor...

"Apple has said that it has found 17 labor violations at its factories. The one garnering most attention is the use of underage employees. "




RE: Child workers
By crystal clear on 3/1/2010 12:19:17 PM , Rating: 2
Old news now...posted on D.T. comments earlier ... Toms had ware is not exposing anything new.

Fair & ethical reporting and comments ofcourse

By crystal clear on 2/27/10, Rating: 2
By crystal clear on 2/27/2010 1:21:44 AM , Rating: 2

Now read this-

Supplier Responsibility
2010 Progress Report

In 2009, Apple conducted audits at 102 facilities, including annual audits of all final assembly manufacturers, first-time audits of component and nonproduction suppliers, and 15 repeat audits of facilities where a core violation had been discovered.

During most of our audits, suppliers stated-
that Apple was the only company that had ever audited their facility for supplier responsibility .


http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Has+40B+in+Cash+and...


RE: Child workers
By damianrobertjones on 3/1/2010 12:25:37 PM , Rating: 2
Cool and thansk for the info/update


Associated Press starts with iPad
By crystal clear on 3/1/2010 12:01:37 PM , Rating: 2
An application from the news organization will incorporate a paid subscription model for putting content on mobile devices.

The Associated Press has unveiled plans to set up a division that would help the news cooperative and member newspapers and broadcasters sell digital content for use on a new generation of electronic readers, and tablet PCs such as the Apple iPad.

In a keynote speech Friday before the Colorado Press Association, Tom Curley, president and chief executive of the AP, said the new business unit would be called the AP Gateway and would become "the launching pad for new products and services from AP and other interested news publishers."

Curley told the CPA convention in Denver that the first Gateway application would be used to deliver news to the iPad, which Apple plans to release in late March. The application would incorporate a paid subscription model and would be open to AP members.



http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handh...




RE: Associated Press starts with iPad
By crystal clear on 3/1/2010 12:05:24 PM , Rating: 2
The AP's iPad app could compete with offerings from some of its member newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which also are believed to be mulling whether to sell subscriptions on the iPad to take advantage of its format.

http://www.ap.org/pages/about/whatsnew/wn_022610a....


RE: Associated Press starts with iPad
By reader1 on 3/1/10, Rating: -1
By McDave on 3/3/2010 11:27:24 PM , Rating: 1
Given the huge difference in usability & the localisation (download) of the content for off-line consumption this may not be an issue.

Compared to Windows Apps, Web Apps/Sites are fine, compared to iPhone/iPad Apps (& OSX Apps), Web Apps are terrible.

Many sites identify they have an iApp but it would be good for Safari to highlight if one is available when you browse so you can get a better experience than the web can offer.

McD


The death of the Web continues.
By reader1 on 3/1/10, Rating: -1
By damianrobertjones on 3/1/2010 11:57:51 AM , Rating: 2
In the future, many will buy from digital stores while the people that have fallen for apple's bull, jailbreak/crack/break the iphads protection to read and install what they want.

The units will sell more and more as people break the device again and again, to eventually be replaced by something a little bit more 'shiny'.


RE: The death of the Web continues.
By StevoLincolnite on 3/1/2010 12:22:34 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
In the future, all digital content will be obtained through digital stores, as these magazines will be.


Oh yes... Keep believing your own propaganda! Yep, you can tell the future alright!

quote:
As closed platforms, like the iPad, gradually become more popular for obtaining digital content


Or it will fail like the Apple TV, you DON'T know if it will succeed or not.

quote:
the Web will be abandoned by content providers for the more lucrative digital stores.


This just proves you're insane...
Everything is pretty much internet connected these days, with easy access to the web, it's not going anywhere.


RE: The death of the Web continues.
By reader1 on 3/1/10, Rating: -1
By StevoLincolnite on 3/1/2010 1:56:38 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Apple TV is going to evolve into a full-fledged App/entertainment device with motion sensing controls. It will succeed then, but the iPad is currently the main priority.


Are you nuts? You nor' anyone else has any idea if either will succeed, it's more along the lines of "You hope" it will succeed, till then, keep smoking the drugs.


RE: The death of the Web continues.
By Pirks on 3/1/2010 2:47:25 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Apple TV evolves into entertainment device with _motion sensing controls_
Holy drap! Just imagine how much $$$$$$ Ballmer will get from Jobs for the Natal license. Godam'!!:)))


By McDave on 3/3/2010 8:19:43 PM , Rating: 2
Yep. Because 6 million unit sales is a real failure!

McD


By McDave on 3/3/2010 8:28:56 PM , Rating: 1
Is that supposed to be a prediction?

iTunes has been doing this for years. The Apps Store mainlines 150K apps directly to the iDevices more efficiently than the pointless mess of the web ever did or will. Both of these consumer outlets are much bigger than their conventional counterparts and they've just begun. iTunes hasn't even started delivering media to 50+ of it's 70+ international stores yet!

This isn't a prediction, it's history.

McD


"Game reviewers fought each other to write the most glowing coverage possible for the powerhouse Sony, MS systems. Reviewers flipped coins to see who would review the Nintendo Wii. The losers got stuck with the job." -- Andy Marken











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