Double dipping into a tiny tiny pot

Posted on October 27, 2011 by chris

Marco Arment says he doesn’t like seeing ads in digital magazines

what did I pay for?

Well you didn’t pay enough for a publication without ads that’s for sure. The economics of magazines on the iPad aren’t some magical cash cow that makes publishers millions for doing nothing. The costs involved are large even if you are simply making a PDF available in a container app.

Adverts are one of the few ways you can make them viable. The same is true in print. The price of print is low because the cost of adverts is high.

I can guarantee you that without ads nearly all the digital magazines would ‘feel’ more expensive because they bloody well would be more expensive MUCH more expensive.

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Back in the day or The wistful memories of a young Mac user

Posted on October 27, 2011 by chris

I remember when, back in the day I was a wet behind the ears Mac fanboy. With my trusty SE and its 4MB hard drive and single button mouse I was smitten. There was a tale that did the rounds every so often about how it was difficult for Apple to grow sales not because Macs were incredibly expensive or offered nothing different, but because of PC World salesman. This story was a regular visitor to the letters pages of various Mac magazines (yes, I read them all: MacUser, MacFormat, Macworld, The Mac). It went something like this:

I was in PC World the other day and another customer asked the salesman “What’s that?” The salesman replied “It’s a Mac, basically it’s a bit like a Windows PC, but different” And with that the customer bought a PC. If Apple can’t solve this conundrum then it’s never going to grow sales.

There were variations on this theme. Why do I bring this up now? Well, the other day I was in PC World and a guy picked up an Android tablet and asked the salesman “What’s this?” Salesman replied “it’s a bit like an iPad, but different”

 

Game. Set. Match?

 

 

 

Posted in Apple, iPad | 1 Comment

Cancer isn’t like that

Posted on October 19, 2011 by chris

I admit that my experience of seeing someone die of Cancer is limited, but I find it difficult to believe that Steve Jobs was working the day before he died. I find it difficult to believe he was talking the day before he died.

This from PC Mag just seems too, um, neat. I really think it more likely that Tim Cook was making his excuses rather than actually rushing off to take a call from Steve Jobs.

 

“I visited Apple for the announcement of the iPhone 4S [at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California]. When I was having a meeting with Tim Cook, he said, ‘Oh Masa, sorry I have to quit our meeting.’ I said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘My boss is calling me.’ That was the day of the announcement of the iPhone 4S. He said that Steve is calling me because he wants to talk about their next product. And the next day, he died.”

 

I could of course, be wrong, but there’s just something about this story that doesn’t feel right.

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Paul Thurrott Windows Phone 7.5 vs. iOS 5

Posted on October 18, 2011 by chris

After 15 straight months of using Windows Phone, going back to the iPhone is like going back in time, and while I appreciate that this won’t make sense to those who have never gazed out beyond their sheltered iLives, I can tell you that Microsoft’s smart phone OS is better, more efficient, and more beautiful to look at.

The bitter, bitter irony of this piece from Paul Thurrott is that were you to reverse the preference and call the shots and tone in favour of iOS and the iPhone he’d simply *roll his eyes* and cite it as another tiresome example of how the ‘Apple backed media’ twists itself in knots trying to favour Apple over any competitor.

Try it, read almost any of his Apple coverage and where the word Apple or an Apple product appears replace it with Microsoft or an Microsoft product. But then he probably sees it as his one man crusade to defeat the Apple biased media and their fixation with the company and their reporting on it in a wholly unquestioning and positive light.

For the record I use a Windows phone day-to-day and though it does have some nice touches I do not recognise this utopian world of modern discovery that Thurrott espouses. Not at all.

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iOS 5 it’s just the beginning

Posted on October 18, 2011 by chris

It’s more and more apparent what direction Apple is headed in. Complete control of the home and mobile computing platform. iOS 5 has so many pointers to that end it’s laughable.

AirPlay and iMessages are just two. Describe them and they sound like neat technologies. Use them and suddenly you see how the roots grow, twist and tangle around dragging you deeper and deeper into the Apple ecosystem.

It won’t affect everyone and there will always be alternatives, but I think Apple has just laid down the next 20 years of its dominance. It may not come to fruition, but as it stands iOS 5 is just the start.

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Siri boy

Posted on October 9, 2011 by chris

Last night my wife was on a train that was cancelled at Doncaster. Worse things I cannot imagine, but luckily she’d almost immediately caught a train to Leeds. Anyway she sent me a text message asking what time the train from Leeds to Halifax was and dutifully I looked it up.

When filling out the web form I thought to myself ‘wouldn’t this be simpler if I could just ask.’ hey, Siri when is the next train from Leeds to Halifax? Platform?

Someone should invent that.

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One of my personal favourite Steve Jobs legacies

Posted on October 6, 2011 by chris

is one that barely ever gets a mention:

Apple Supplier
Responsibility

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Why?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by chris

Because fuck you. That’s why.

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How Apple gamed the system and over-hyped the iPhone launch

Posted on October 5, 2011 by chris

 

Apple iphone invite

 

 

HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH STUNTS LIKE THIS?

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Making digital magazines

Posted on September 30, 2011 by chris

I had, sort of, just finished a really long post on making an iPad digital magazine. Taking an initial idea and working though the process right up to the point of publishing and selling it.

I talked about the various methods, how, why, where, all that jazz. Discussed the pros and cons of the different approaches you can take to get an iPad based digital product out.

It contained the phrase ‘commercial realities’ and ‘words ‘budget’ ‘time’ and ‘man-power’ a lot.

But then I thought to myself why on earth should I give that knowledge away for free. So I’m keeping it to myself. If you’d like to have a stab at working it out feel free to download a copy of Padder and see if you can. If the words ‘simple’ or ‘easy’ come to mind about any of the methods stop and go back to the start.

I will offer this, however:

There are lots of approaches you can take to creating an iPad magazine. Each one has clear advantages and disadvantages, from both a commercial and reader angle. The only real issue that affects every single one right now and is truly the only one that matters is, in my humble opinion, size.

Pure and simple it’s MB or bust.

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