Way way back in the mists of ancient history, I owned a Palm device, and I loved the little fella.
One of my favourite apps for the Palm was AvantGo (now defunct) – a huge database of free newspaper and magazine content that the device would download every time you synced the Palm with your desktop computer.
I used to spend long train journeys catching up with news from the BBC, Wired, and a bunch of other publications. Most of it was full text, there were no ads (not that I can remember, anyway – this was a long time ago now), it was fast and quick and easy. Superb.
This week I noticed Time magazine’s new app, and started poking around elsewhere in the news section of the App Store. In particular, I wanted to see what the UK media were up to.
So far, I’ve found apps from The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and, um, The Daily Star.
As yet there’s no app from the UK’s most tech-savvy and podcast-heavy newspaper, The Guardian; although I have no doubt one is on the way.
What I keep thinking is this: are these the beginnings of a digital newspaper industry? When printing on newspaper finally becomes too expensive, and as advertising income continues to dwindle, are these mobile apps going to be the only way newspapers can survive?
The answer, I think, is: depends. It depends on the newspaper. Not all are created equal, and not all are in precisely the same boat. Here in the UK, The Times and The Daily Mail remain wealthy institutions despite the poor trading conditions; The Independent, on the other hand, has a miniscule budget and an ever-shrinking staff, yet still clings on (and manages to get an iPhone app out before many of its rivals, so credit to them for that).
Another interesting thing to note is that all of these apps are free and contain advertising. Which is considered perfectly normal on the App Store. Thing is, printed newspapers contain adverts and you have to pay for them. Which is also considered perfectly normal. How would people feel if they had to pay for a news app that also contained adverts? I suspect there would be a lot of unhappiness.
Talking of unhappiness, The Telegraph’s app made me unhappy with this:
That’s the first time I have seen any kind of pre-use license agreement in an iPhone app. Or should I say “agrement”:
The Telegraph app is disappointing. The ugly and irritating EULA aside, it’s full of unnecessary animations and interruptions. The Independent’s app is simpler and loads up everything at the start (it only takes a few seconds to download the 100 or so stories found in an average day’s paper).
The slickest of the bunch I tried is Time’s app, which does a great job of combining speed and ease of use with gorgeous presentation and plenty of photos.
I’m aware I only scratched the surface. What newspaper or magazine apps have you used and loved? Or used and hated?
