Random iPad Thoughts

Here are some quick, half-formed thoughts about iPad which go with my last entry, iPad: Star Trek-level Shit Going On. Further posts will actually be more coherent, as I’m trying to rapidly prototype my thinking about iPad.

  1. Two disturbingly negative examples of legacy organizations struggling with how to deal with channel distribution in the iPad world:
    Turf War at the New York Times: Who Will Control the iPad?:

    On one side, a Times source explains, you have print circulation, which thinks it should control the iPad since it’s just another way to distribute the paper. They’d like to charge $20 to $30 per month for the Times‘ forthcoming iPad app, basically the product already demonstrated on stage with Steve Jobs, the source said. Why so much? Because they’re said to be afraid people will cancel the print paper if they can get the same thing on their iPad. Nevermind that iPad distribution comes with none of the paper or delivery costs associated with print, or that there’s already a free electronic edition available to subscribers who cancel.

    Will You Pay for Hulu on the iPad? It May Be Your Only Choice.

    And if Hulu decides to define the iPad as a mobile device, it would also need its content owners to grant it mobile rights, which it doesn’t actually have. Again, doable. But the broadcasters are already making money from other mobile services, like Verizon’s V Cast. So they have to tread carefully.

    What is most frustrating is that I would pay for both Hulu and The New York Times on iPad, but I fear that price expectations from legacy organizations will limit the total uptake (especially since magazines are double-downing on print). iPad versions of the NYTimes should be less than home delivery due to lower overhead (no delivery or printing cost) and Hulu should look to Netflix for their pricing model, $10 a month feels right for content I can get over-the-air for free but with the added convenience of time-shifting; additional advertising should be limited, or eliminated, for any paid subscription fee and bonuses such as full program catalogs would go a long way.
    The problem is that those in charge of both newspapers and television fundamentally don’t understand that iPad, while acting as another channel, will increase their market size and consumption habits through the form factor and ease-of-use. In the case of Hulu, the idiocy of parsing mobile versus laptop screen versus boxee-augmented television screen is breathtaking. These three object are merely different sized screens for viewing content – content that we would gladly pay through subscriptions or advertisements.

  2. Books in the Age of the iPad:

    I want to look at where printed books stand in respect to digital publishing, why we historically haven’t read long-form text on screens and how the iPad is wedging itself in the middle of everything. In doing so I think we can find the line in the sand to define when content should be printed or digitized.

    Most interesting part: content as Formless Content or Definite Content.

  3. Initial thoughts on how to design applications: Matt Gemmell on iPad Application Design. Very interesting thought on user interface changes and tactics for the iPad world.
  4. A Flickr set with all of the iPad UI Conventions shown in public advertisements and demonstrations. Zapruder-like beauty of collection.

I still believe that iPad will be a revolutionary device, especially concerning how we interact with data and place.

The Edge: With Or Without You (two versions)

First watch this short video of the making of With Or Without You, take careful note of the outro solo and Edge’s comments regarding it:

Now, watch this duet between Edge and Wyclef: