... geeks "like us" who only care about iOS and are willing to pay for content. Just to be accurate.
Not that there's anything wrong with paying for content. Every time you're confronted by an ad that you didn't volunteer to look at, you're paying for content.
But iOS-only seems like quite a limitation, and seems to contradict "for geeks like us" as the headline appears in HN.
A decade ago, something like this published in the closed formats of the time (MS Word, maybe) would have met with a huge backlash. Today, it seems like Apple have convinced the market that 'closed' is OK, because it's well-designed and a little bit shiny. I think it's a real step backward, especially given the great open standards that are available (like HTML5) and other tools which give similar control with more accessibility (like PDF).
He needs critical mass in order to make this sustainable in the long term - without having to resort to ads, sponsored reviews and all sorts of ways to keep the quality.
The choice for iOS for the initial platform seems obvious: it's much easier to monetize quickly. And it's easy to add Kindle, Android, HTML5 and others later on - at the cost of maintaining multiple versions, provided that there's enough interested paying subscribers to justify the effort.
I think that's exactly the right approach, and a real step forward.
Yes, to the degree that Microsoft has decided to imitate the Apple model. It seems Microsoft has closed Windows 8 to third-part applications (except pre-existing ones operating in compatibility mode). All Windows 8 apps that depend on Windows 8 features can only be gotten from Microsoft directly, in an obvious imitation of the App store:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/developers-windows-8/
What's worse, these cyber-birdcages seem wildly popular.
You know exactly what he meant, no need to play word games.
>Given the iPad's position in the tablet market, it will be a while before magazine style publications (which are natural for the form-factor) give equal priority to Android.
It's text.
Also, considering it took 4 years for Instapaper to make it to Android, skepticism is more than warranted.
Does anybody know of "good" Newsstand apps? This might be the first.
I personally think Apple should release a more aggressive Newsstand API and a best practices guide: e.g. by all means customise your design and experience but that doesn't mean you should release an app crammed full of pngs that weighs half a gig. Newsstand apps should be low bandwidth and text-centric. Why can't I search all my magazines from a central location? Why can't I see a central list of articles I've favourited from a variety of publications? As it stands, the only way to do this is with an RSS reader or Instapaper. I'd be happy to pay for quality journalism if it was in a format that's convenient and sensible.
I think it's fair to say we all want to see a way good journalism can exist in a digital world. There's no reason these people need lose their jobs if we can crack this problem.
As an aside, care to share a link to your travel magazine? I'd be interested in checking it out. I'm travelling to Japan for the first time tomorrow.
If an iPhone 3GS can run iOS6, I am perplexed why the same can't be true for the iPad 1.
EDIT: Whoops I see this has paid in-app purchases. I wonder if there's something out there that can offer as seamless an experience as iTunes in-app purchases for webapps.
I guess that was Apple's end goal, but it's just a sad state of affairs. And even if they wanted to use some other option... Apple would block it on iOS.
Docs: https://developers.google.com/in-app-payments/
Demos: https://developers.google.com/in-app-payments/docs/samples
Update:
After reading a couple of the articles it seems pretty high quality and justifies the price. It's also only the second good Newsstand app I've used (The New York Times is the other). I've tried several others and they are just 100's of space consuming images, difficult to read especially on the iPhone.
Each issue of Wired is now 500+ MB (due to the Retina displays). If you're on 3G or at a public WiFi, it probably takes more time to download than to read the 2-3 articles you're interested.
In hindsight, you wouldn't expect anything different from Marco. Really hope he succeeds.
HN is also like that.
I wonder how much evil it would be to create an RSS feed for it.
But I really have no desire to pay a monthly fee for more articles. So I guess I'm opting out of this one.
ugh!
