May 4th, 2010 
pro2go 
Users have jeered the New York Times‘ main iPad app, but the newspaper is listening to one in particular: We hear Steve Jobs is among the app’s most vociferous critics and has been shunning it. More »
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Well, it’s good to see Apple is handling this professionally by pretending the NYT doesn’t exist and also smells, and Apple hates it and anyone who’s nice to it. Bitch.
JennaW
@AnneV6: Have any of you seen McSweeney’s 33? It’s basically a giant, one-off Sunday newspaper filled with great essays and stories and creative effort. It was Eggers’ attempt to show how great the medium is to him, how great the industry can be.
I’m pretty sure the only thing that can possibly reconcile the interests of bibliophilic aesthetes like Dave Eggers, and of modern consumer’s demands/of supply chain convenience, is some sort of magic, seamless ePaper way beyond anything we now have. You know. Throw your bundle of broadsheets or your leather-backed moleskine onto a dock, pages fill up with words and pictures, and off you go.
I guess it’d be harder to wrap presents or textbooks with that. Or use as an umbrella. But I guess once could just use the skin of those slain at the ThunderDome… Oh, right. I’m assuming this sort of cool thing only exists in a terribly bleak futuristic dystopia. Eggers probably wrote a story about that once, but I’m sure it was difficult to parse out between the two or three layers of meta-aware narrative, imaginary characters and incredibly-sploogy and shameful mental masturbation.
Yahweh Took My Prepuce
Any web paywall will only hasten the death of a once fine newspaper.
Swifter
This is the winter of our dissed content.
CousinGeri
@porpoiseful: Im an complete agreement with you. But I’ll add that I think Apple needs to step up with an iMagazine subscription management and payment service through iTunes. Why they didn’t do so earlier is mind boggling.
inc
The NY Times impressed the hell out of me with the web apps they were releasing about this time in 2007. By comparison the iPad app is a bore. I didn’t even bother downloading the thing. The Amazon thing makes the most sense.
Side observation: ryan’s secret man crush continues. No complaints here though. Fascinating stuff. Steve’s life is a he’ll of a lot more interesting than mine.
inc
Yes NYT, your entire problem boils down to the medium. You could surely get away with charging stupid high prices if only your publication was available on the right platform.
There are certainly no high quality free alternatives to the NYT. This very idea is preposterous, slanderous, and idiotic. A life without a subscription to the NYT is a life lived in meaningless ignorance, uncouthness, and intellectual cacaphony.
Is there any wonder why old media is crumbling under it’s own weight?
NorwoodIsMyHero
This is such a strange consequence of licensing agreements. I tried out the trial period of the daily e-ink version of the Times on my nook (I assume it’s the same as what’s sent to the Kindle). It was fine, you know. Articles pushed to me in the morning, great selection across the board. But, you know… eh. It wasn’t worth the cost, particularly when the website and iPhone versions are updating throughout the day. It’s a strange phenomenon when the news at 9 AM feels impossibly limited at 5 PM. I ended up canceling my subscription before the two-week trial period ended.
Also… fears about “cannibalizing print subscriptions” seem insane. There was a point when I’d read newspapers proper. Maybe when I was first in college and could get a copy of the Journal or USA Today for free each morning. But now I’m far more inclined to read individual stories on my phone or laptop. People like a polished finished product, sure, but they’ll also happily read individual articles linked to from blogs or the main website. The free website is cannibalizing print subscriptions, the free iPhone app is cannibalizing print subscriptions. A $30 iPad app would surely recoup some costs, right?
(It’s possibly that there’s a swath of wealthy, middle-aged professionals in CT and NJ who do still subscribe daily, for whom an iPad app would be a reasonable substitute– but that can’t possibly be a large part of the Times’ overall volume, can it?)
Yahweh Took My Prepuce
@MrInBetween: He must also be unhappy with some of the recent coverage.
He’s exercising what leverage he has left.
Old men…
JC Hewitt
So, let me see if I am understanding the situation: Even Steve Jobs hates it when a behemoth-sized company restricts his content choices.
MrInBetween
I used to work at a newspaper, in the web division, and I can just SEE the smarmy sales guy at this meeting with the “great idea” to limit the content in this app thinking it will “encourage people to subscribe to the print edition!” (instead of just frustrating customers who’ll feel cheated, as limiting content usually does.)
There are plenty of people who think, incorrectly, that print will somehow make a comeback. I’m convinced it won’t be until all the major newspapers go under or the old generation of media big-wigs all retire that they’ll realize devices like Kindle and iPad ARE the future of print media.
This is the age of digital music, tv, and movies. I barely own any physical dvds, cds, or books anymore – why on EARTH would I want to continue receiving 2-3 pounds of paper on my doorstep every day?
(Also, yay Kindle for thinking ahead!)
AnneV6
$15 would be an absolute cap if they really want to get digital subscribers. If they put enough effort into it, and really made the interactive content, video, etc., shine – then I could see digitized print media finally finding an audience through the iPad. If they’re going to even attempt it, they have to do it right. But what they’ve done so far only shows how hopelessly directionless and uninspired they truly are.
porpoiseful