iPad’s Killer App: It Looks A Bit Like A Magazine
Summary
It looks very much like a magazine.” That is likely to mean two things – using the SDK’s other best feature (split-screening) to create iPhone-like apps with multi-columned content; and digital-edition mags and newspapers (which are horribly ill-suited to reading on a PC) may finally get the platform they deserve. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has built a device shaped like the pieces of paper that, to publishers’ chagrin, many folk no longer carry under their arm. One other key development, when combined with the larger screen, may promise also to return the paradigm of paying that magazines enjoyed before the web – it’s the popularity of paid apps and the emergence of in-app charging and renewals, both introduced on mobiles before tablets. We understand Guardian News & Media considered charging an obvious and easy decision from the outset; its editor last week forecast “significant revenue” from iPad”. There was dismissal of Apple entering the phone industry – supposedly, there was no way they could make it anywhere as usable as a Nokia – look what’s happened.” Smartphones, e-readers and tablets will be hot topics at our upcoming paidContent 2010, Feb. 19 in New York.