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[isthisthingon]

This could be a really entertaining day if this article is on the mark.  The title is: "With Apple Tablet, Print Media Hope for a Payday" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/technology/26apple.html).

People who have seen the tablet say Apple will market it not just as a way to read news, books and other material, but also a way for companies to charge for all that content. By marrying its famously slick software and slender designs with the iTunes payment system, Apple could help create a way for media companies to alter the economics and consumer attitudes of the digital era.

If figuring out a way to effect a time-machine maneuver to recapture audiences into content-bundled paying audiences is what Apple has in mind, well I'll probably have a good

Although I would be totally stunned on one level it makes perfect sense considering Apple's success with iTunes.  Apple slowing down the inevitable crash of outmoded industries and scraping the last profits from their dying, clutching hands    That is truly priceless !   Music had no other real option and let's face it, print media is as dead as a door knob.  Why of course they will reach out their hand from the piles of quicksand they are dying in, reach out to their savior Apple and Steve Jobs - only to discover they're being used again, to sell boutique portable electronic devices that will ride on their creative works all the way down to their eventual demise. 

Don't get me wrong, this sounds like a potentially very cool device but anything around a $1K sticker and then charging for print media downloads sounds more like a rich persons toy than a knowledge tool to empower people to read 

[perkiset]

I really don't understand why we should expect that the organizations that research, report, present and distribute content should do it for free. Or that just because we purchase a new device to get said content, it should come for free. Or that, having spent years and years and untold millions (certainly, at the least) on research, design, failure, rinse repeat ad naseum that we should be able to really get the fruits of that labor for a really great deal. I mean really.

I don't like the physical load of magazines because I've become accustomed to the Internet. But I miss the content. If the tablet can reinvigorate the love of presented content, then it'll happily subscribe to magazines, newspapers etc once again.

It is profoundly short-sighted, IMO, to imagine that just because the print media is dead, that the desire for content in a similar format has gone the same way. I don't want to have to research everything. I am not only willing, but quite happy to outsource research, filtering, presentation and distribution of, say, 70 pages of content that appeals to my likes/hobbies/job etc every month. And if this new device facilitates that, I'll be the archetype target and reason that Apple will make a metric fuckton off the tablet.

[kurdt]

In my opinion the biggest gist will be the 10" display. I have Cybook Gen3 right now and the 6" screen is way too small for comfortable reading and based on 10" netbook I have, 10" ain't gonna cut it either. I doubt it that paying for content will fly with young audience and reading morning newspaper from 10" screen might be a scretch for older folks. Now I'm not saying that paying for content is wrong, I think it's justified for all the same reasons Perk just said. But I don't see myself paying for content anymore and I represent the majority of 20-something and that's why I think it's not going to fly as well as Apple hopes. If iPad has Safari and 3G connectivity, then it's pretty much gameover already. Also if Apple is seeing this as the newspaper replacement, they might be in for a bumpy ride because of this. I think most of the older folks will rather take that than iPad just because that's more familiar form for a newspaper.

[perkiset]

LOL I just read back through many of your posts on the matter Kurdt, and I believe you have set yourself up to be disappointed.

Manohman there is so much armchair quarterbacking and "if they don't why then I'magunna" and "if I don't get my favorite feature it won't be worth it" around the 'tubes ATM ... I've got a shiny new nickel that no matter what is presented on Wed, all the fanbois will jump right in line and the cynics will find plenty wrong.

In the meantime, I'll have a new toy, better connection to my content and a stock value that is off the charts. Can't wait!

[isthisthingon]

That LG flex newspaper is wild.  And perks - I actually agree with you and completely support compensating people for that work.  It's just that it's impossible IMO to recreate the same kind of bundled content captivity that existed when people were far more "forced" to endure whatever corporations decided to sell to you.  The very existence of freedom from this marketing slavery has changed the game irreversibly, again IMO.

Wouldn't it be great if we could completely forget that magazines ever existed - just for this hypothetical moment of brainstorming creativity - and see what the creative geniuses at Apple manifested with no preconceived ideas of what existed before?  It's possible that Apple will deliver something that profoundly unique.  But I still have a bad iPod taste in my mouth from the DRM debacle.  Hopefully they will avoid such frustrating paths this time 

>In the meantime, I'll have a new toy, better connection to my content and a stock value that is off the charts. Can't wait!

   Nothing wrong with the truth

[perkiset]

I think that, if there ever was a time that it might come to pass, now is it: since the limitations of "paper" and "ink" will be removed from this delivery mechanism, then perhaps something really special will evolve. Interestingly, I don't see Apple as the purveyor of such goodies - only the creator of the platform, which has seemingly forever been their forte. Agree that all content deliverers are going to have to really change how they think/write/present and deal with their client because what we want is very different than the past, when as you accurately describe, we just got what we got.

I have no idea if they'll actually do it, but I'd not bet against Jobs at this stage of the game.

[kurdt]

LOL I just read back through many of your posts on the matter Kurdt, and I believe you have set yourself up to be disappointed.

Hehe, naah... you should never read what I have said in the past. I usually change my opinions in weekly basis based on the new information I find.

I actually have a quite clear set of features I would like to see that would make it good FOR ME and all those features are feasible from technical point of view. But I think that Apple & Jobs has a different device in their mind I would prefer it to be more like stripped version of OSX instead of iPhone OS to make it more like a computer. I see iPhone as "dumb" mobile device with some more advanced stuff than your average mobile device but I still don't see it as something really versatile like I see normal computers. But please let it not be another AppleTV.

[perkiset]

LOL we are definitely on different pages.

I see the iPhone as a really smart little computer that happens ALSO to be a phone. And the AppleTV works wonderfully for me - given what my mission for it is. That's not to say that, under different circumstances, it's both/either underpowered or has incorrect capabilities. But I love the little boxes and for what I need they do great.