We’ve been dying to know more about Microsoft’s Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source.

We’re told Courier will function as a “digital journal,” and it’s designed to be seriously portable: it’s under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn’t much bigger than a 5×7 photo when closed. That’s a lot smaller than we expected — this new picture really puts it into perspective — and the internals apparently reflect that emphasis on mobility: rather than Windows 7, we’re told the Courier is built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series, which we’re taking to mean Windows CE 6.

As we’ve heard, the interface appears to be pen-based and centered around drawing and writing, with built-in handwriting recognition and a corresponding web site that allows access to everything entered into the device in a blog-like format complete with comments. We’re also hearing that there will be a built-in camera, and there’s a headphone jack for media playback. Most interestingly, it looks like the Courier will also serve as Microsoft’s e-book device, with a dedicated ecosystem centered around reading. It all sounds spectacular, but all we have for a launch date is “Q3 / Q4″, and we have no idea how much it’s going to cost, so we’re trying to maintain a healthy skepticism until any of this gets official — call us any time, Microsoft. One more pic showing the interface after the break.

Source.

Please note: this is about the user interface conventions and considerations which apply to creating software for the iPad platform (and touch-screen tablet devices in general). It is not a technical discussion of iPad-related APIs (which remain under NDA at time of writing in early March 2010).

As I watched the iPad introduction keynote, there was one thing above all which struck me:

That’s iWork (Keynote, Pages and Numbers) for iPad. It’s also a message.

It’s not just a big iPhone

The iPad may be a larger version of the iPhone in terms of the hardware and operating system, but treating it as the same device would be foolish. It turns out that increasing the display size of touch-screen hardware can transform it into an entirely new class of device. The iPad is a productivity platform in a way that the iPhone rightly never tried to be. (And it’s officially OK to charge $9.99 per app.)

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, he did so in a very specific way:

The iPad is in the middle, between the iPhone and the Mac. This isn’t just an acknowledgement of relative display size or processing power, it’s also a strong indication of the market position of the device and its software.

The iPad is a target for apps from the desktop, not just from smartphones. There are some very interesting opportunities here.

The Missing Link

We already have iPhone apps on the iPad (they can run at their native size in the middle of the screen, or be scaled up to fit). That’s useful, but it’s not particularly interesting. Far more relevantly, we can bring desktop-class applications to iPad – but we need to rethink our user interface and design in general. What works on iPhone won’t automatically work on iPad.

The essence of the new opportunities on iPad is that this class of device is a natural home not just for the viewers and small utilities we’ve seen on our phones, but also for creators and editors as we see on desktop platforms. Productivity applications, and sophisticated workflows. There are entire genres of applications which haven’t been truly feasible on an iPhone OS device until now; this is an opportunity to literally pioneer a high-profile touch-screen version of those applications.

In order to work out how to do that effectively, we need to talk about what exactly is different about the iPad compared to the touch-screen smartphone platforms. It all comes down to input and output.

• The display is much larger; 1024×768 pixels. Apps with more demanding presentation requirements will be at home here.
• The virtual keyboard is larger, and external physical keyboards are supported via Bluetooth or the dock. Apps which focus on typing are now much more feasible.
• The iPhone supports multi-touch, but only the iPad can credibly claim to support two hands. We’ll talk more about this later.

These facts lead to a shift in how we can think about what applications and interfaces can exist on the iPad. We just need a set of guidelines to follow.

The iPad introduces and lends itself to some new UI conventions. I’ve compiled a list of thoughts that I’m going to discuss below. Some of these are simply from looking at the built-in apps on the iPad, and some are subjective impressions.

Master-Detail

This isn’t new, but it’s new to the iPhone OS platform. Master-Detail is an interface concept whereby you can see both a list of things, and also additional information about the currently-selected thing in the list. On iPhone, either the Master or the Detail was visible, but not both – there wasn’t room. On iPad, we can again have Master-Detail, as exemplified by Mail:

This gives us an easy set of conventions:

• Master-Detail is feasible and acceptable on iPad.
• In landscape, both Master and Detail are visible.
• In portrait, the Master is shown in a transient pop-over.

Two-pane and three-pane interfaces are once again worthy of consideration on this class of device.

Look like a Viewer

The primary warning about designing for the iPad is: more screen space doesn’t mean more UI. You’ll be tempted to violate that principle, and you need to resist the temptation. It’s OK to have UI available to cover your app’s functionality, but a bigger screen doesn’t mean it should all be visible at once.

• Hide configuration UI until needed.
• Look like a viewer, and behave like an editor.

Pages looks like a beautiful reading app:

until you interact with something to display relevant editing UI:

This leads us naturally to the next point.

Edit in place

On the Mac and other desktop platforms, there’s a convention where we have globally-positioned editing UI. Common examples include floating inspector palettes, toolbars, menus, and status-bars. That won’t fly on the iPad, because it introduces a level of indirection between the editing action and the object being edited. It’s a touch-screen device; we should interact and edit directly.

• Edit object properties in place.
• Attach the editing UI to the object. Show/hide/move as necessary.

For example, when you edit transition/build animations in Keynote, you do so on the actual object to be animated:

Upon adding an animation, the list of available types is similarly attached to the relevant object:

The same goes for slides as a whole:

It’s a good principle to follow; it’s direct and immediate, and it’s intuitive for a device where it feels like you’re interacting with the actual objects using your fingers.

Inspectors should be Contextual

There can, however, sometimes be value in keeping standard editing interfaces in standard positions; the key consideration is how much UI to show. On the desktop, this is something we often get wrong. Here are two familiar examples:

These inspectors (for Keynote and Microsoft Word on the Mac) are difficult to use because they show all possible editing controls at once, disabling those which don’t apply to whatever is selected. It’s not easy to find which options apply to what you’re editing at the time, and the density of controls requires the pixel-precision of a mouse pointer and considerable screen space to display.

On the iPad, any globally-positioned inspectors should nonetheless be contextual in terms of what editing UI they show. Don’t overload the user with irrelevant options; hide anything that doesn’t apply. If you’re editing text, show only text editing controls:

If you’re editing a chart, show only options relevant to charts:

The guideline is simple, and it’s good advice even for the desktop:

• Inspectors should present context-relevant UI.
• Hide controls which don’t apply to the selection or focus.

The concept of context is key to iPad software design. In human-computer interaction, we often discuss this under the title of modes.

Use Modes to simplify UI

Modes, or modal interfaces, are where the user deals just with one particular area of a piece of software at a time. They see only the relevant controls and information for one particular task or type of work; an example would be iPhoto’s photo-editing interface, or the Ribbon in the recent versions of the Microsoft Office applications.

There’s been a history of modes getting some bad press on the desktop. The issue is that they trade stability (things always being in exactly the same place in the UI, and not changing) for simplicity (not having too many controls to look through at once). On the iPad, it’s clear where the winning side of the balance is: simplicity. Modes are completely appropriate on this device.

The challenge is in keeping our UI clear and uncluttered. Not only that, but our UI has to be actually usable with a finger – an incredibly imprecise, enormous, screen-hiding input device – rather than a pixel-perfect mouse pointer. Modes can help us keep plenty of space around. Move UI elements into modes, and/or position them contextually and temporarily – but just don’t go overboard with the number of modes.

• Modes are preferable to clutter.
• But removing a feature might be preferable to adding a mode for it.

The modal organisation of features is better than an all-at-once approach, but don’t let it become an excuse for feature creep. One of the primary rules of iPad app design must surely be that less is more.

Fewer Features

Feature-creep or bloat is the bane of desktop software. Any application with a non-trivial feature set isn’t fully used by most of its users; that’s pretty obvious to anyone who has ever used Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop or even the iWork apps on the Mac. There are plenty of features there which you’ll never touch, and would probably never miss if they were gone.

Most users need only a small set of features, and software is better when it’s focused. A nice side-effect of focused software is that the UI is easier to design and comprehend (because there’s less of it, and it’s more obvious why each thing is there). The trick is to figure out which small set of features are actually important, and implement only those.

• Offer only the most-used/needed features. If in any doubt, remove a feature.
• Discard optional/niche or highly configurable functionality.

This is another rule which is equally true for the desktop. The difference is that people have been trained to accept fuzzy-edged applications on their computers, whereas they probably won’t do so on the iPad. Be focused, targeted and comprehensible. You can add things later when it becomes clear what’s important, but you’ll never recover from a confusing first impression.

Two Hands

Many people are excited about the fact the iPad is large enough to support two whole hands providing input simultaneously. The hardware support is no different from the iPhone, but the available space certainly is. Suddenly we have visions of really usable card games and air hockey and so forth; it’s hard to underestimate the importance of this factor.

The worrying thing is that I’ve heard people talking about providing twice the UI, with strips of buttons and controls down both sides of the screen, just because there’s enough room for that kind of thing now. Resist that temptation at all costs. The way to support dual-handed input on the iPad is in a discoverable and optional way. There are a couple of interesting examples in Keynote:

During the iPad introduction keynote, Phil Schiller was using Keynote on the device, and demonstrated some subtle dual-hand input features. Whilst resizing a photo, you can tap another photo with your other hand and the one you’re resizing will match that other photo’s size. Similarly, whilst dragging a slide you can tap other slides with your other hand to add them to the group being dragged, thus moving them all at once.

The important point is that there are other, more obvious ways to accomplish these things; the two-handed input features are conveniences and power-user features. They’re useful and time-saving and possibly discoverable, but they’re not the only way to accomplish those tasks. We’re only just beginning to come to terms with the possibilities of dual-handed input; essential functionality shouldn’t require it yet.

• Dual-handed input is acceptable.
• Be usable with one hand. Don’t require two hands for essential features.
• But don’t be afraid to offer time-saving, discoverable dual-handed functionality.

The fact that users can use their hands to interact is something to capitalise on; it’s a very important aspect of the attraction to this type of device. Understandably, it’s rooted in human psychology.

Use the Psychology of Touch

This is where it gets touchy-feely, and thus where we engineers are least comfortable. It’s also where we find the explanation as to why your grandmother wants an iPad but wouldn’t touch a Mac or PC. The twin key factors are touch, and the device’s unique form-factor.

Touch is emotionally important to humans; it conveys the identity and “realness” of an object. Direct touch bypasses abstraction and creates a strong connection with the touched object. This is particularly true when the object itself triggers associations in our minds. Due to its very size and weight and display area, the iPad triggers powerful associations with:

• Printed documents
• Notepads of paper
• File-folders from the filing cabinet
• Clipboards
• Books

There is something intrinsically “right” about seeing the iPad as a technological successor to, or version of, these physical objects. We’re immediately ready to accept the one as a substitute or enhancement for the other. This is a powerful, and novel, position for the iPad software developer.

It wasn’t true with the iPhone or iPod Touch; the devices are too physically small. The “Notes” app on the iPhone will forever be a simulation of a legal pad; the similar app on the iPad is a legal pad (to your user). It’s an incredibly important distinction in terms of how it influences our design.

There’s a predilection towards “realness” on the iPad which overrides mere fashion and aesthetics as seen on the iPhone; it’s a core component of the attraction of the hardware. The standard apps on the iPad build directly on this by using virtual materials. The form-filling view in Numbers is a good example:

We’ve all clipped those card dividers into our binders, and seen them become dog-eared. We know how the slightly waxy laser-printer paper feels, and we’ve bent and reshaped that paperclip a thousand times. These are real things, presented virtually.

We’ve all been in the room with these varnished bookshelves, lit by afternoon sunlight. We’ve all bought a new novel, opened it and guiltily buried our nose in the pages just to enjoy the smell of books.

We’ve all used this legal pad to sketch ideas. Perhaps we’ve even seen it on the telephone table in the study or hallway, slid into its leather slip-case with an index sheet (all those things are visible in the interface above if you look for them).

We’ve all seen this quality day-planner and wished we had the discipline to use it, because it’s a beautiful analogue thing in an increasingly digital world. We’ve paid ridiculous prices for Moleskines and diaries and fountain pens.

We’ve all seen this address book sitting on a desk, hard-bound and meticulously re-indexed, with a red fabric bookmark sitting loosely over the cover.

Did you feel an emotional connection to any of these images and statements? Your users will feel those connections too, even if they can’t articulate them. You can, and should, directly capitalise on these feelings and connotations.

Even if you can’t find a way to make your interface be a real thing, you can often make it into a surface for real things. It’s one additional level of abstraction, but it’ll still work.

This is the table you empty the photos drawer onto when you want to find a particular image from childhood; the stacks are all that’s left of the long-discarded paper wallets the photos originally arrived in. The full-screen display is a photographer’s light-box. The device becomes physical surfaces we know in the real world.

Even resolutely abstract concepts like playlists of music can be represented as surfaces of CD albums. There’s often a way to pull your software interface a little closer to a familiar object from the real world, and increase engagement with the user.

• Make your application a real object if at all possible.
• Alternatively, make it a surface for real objects.

Our graphic design budget must surely increase, but I think you’ll find the pay-off is more than worth it.

Key Questions

In summary, when approaching iPad app design, do so in a way that acknowledges the strengths and unique advantages of the device and platform. Ask yourself these questions:

• What are the core features? How can I remove some of them?
• How can I make this work on a touchscreen device?
• How do I create an emotional connection?
• How can I make my app uniquely suited to iPad?

Don’t ship before testing on an actual device, and remember that first impressions last – take the time to get it right. Don’t assume that what works on iPhone will be equally suited to iPad, and certainly don’t generalise from desktop software.

There’s a unique and exciting opportunity here, and just possibly the beginning of the next major stage in software design and user experience. You’re getting in on the ground floor, and there’s every reason to be optimistic. Good luck.

The first magazines for which it will create iPad versions are Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour, the company plans to announce in an internal memorandum on Monday.

GQ will have a tablet version of its April issue ready. Vanity Fair and Wired will follow with their June issues, and The New Yorker and Glamour will have issues in the summer (the company has not yet determined the exact timing for those).

The company already sells an iPhone application for GQ. That has sold more than 15,000 copies of the January issue and almost 7,000 of the December issue.

Condé Nast plans to test different prices, types of advertising and approaches to digitizing the magazines for several months before wrapping up the experiment in the fall. “We need to know a little bit more about what kind of a product we can make, how consumers will respond to it, what the distribution system will be,” said Thomas J. Wallace, editorial director of Condé Nast.

The magazines were chosen for their range, he said. “They are representative of the company, right? GQ is men. Glamour is women. Vanity Fair is a dual audience. The New Yorker is unique with its periodicity, and therefore it’s also more news- or text-heavy, and it’s a slightly older audience,” Mr. Wallace said. And Wired has already been working on a reader project with Adobe, the software company that provides publishing tools to much of the magazine industry.

Other than Wired, the digital magazines will be developed internally. “We’re taking a two-track approach partly because we want to learn everything that we can,” said Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital.

During the test phase, the company will sell the digital magazines through iTunes. Wired will also be available in non-iTunes formats. While that means Condé Nast will not have access to consumer data — a valuable tool for its marketing — Ms. Chubb said there were other ways to get that information.

“There are opportunities within the application if you give the consumer a good reason to register,” she said. She cited an example on GQ’s Web site called “GQ Rules,” where visitors must register to see fashion tips.

Ms. Chubb said the company had not decided on the appearance of the ads. “What we’re looking at right now is what kind of ad units for a phone and iPad would optimize the experience for a consumer,” she said. “As an example, if you’re a fashion retailer or a fashion advertiser who also has an e-commerce store, how can we make the simple fact that you can click through to an item and buy it kind of great? How do you romance it a little bit more?”

Mr. Wallace said that once the company had figured out what worked and what did not on the iPad, it would think about digitizing other magazines. “If we are happy with the results that we get, we’ll be ready to go in the fall,” he said.

Charles H. Townsend, president and chief executive of Condé Nast, said in an e-mail message that the company was being public about its intentions with the iPad to “take a leadership position.”

“We feel confident enough that consumers will want our content in this new format that we are committing the resources necessary to be there,” Mr. Townsend said. “How large a revenue stream digitized content represents is an answer we hope to learn through this process.”

Revenue starved publishers are getting excited about the iPad. Even before Apple’s latest product had a name, magazine conglomerates were discussing their plans to deploy tablet-friendly versions of their publications on the device. This week, we’re learning some of the details of Condé Nast’s plans for the iPad.

And while it’s great to see traditional publishers taking some initiative in a burgeoning digital space, there are more than a few reasons to think that many of them are jumping the gun at the chance to charge for content on a new device. Here are five.

1. Apple and Adobe do not play well together.

Condé Nast developed an ambitious iPad friendly version of Wired magazine (complete with integrated videos, interactive ads and special iPad only features). But it won’t be implemented on other properties because it was developed with Adobe Flash and Apple still isn’t supporting Flash on its mobile products. Similar integration problems are likely to arise again, and Apple has made no indication that it is willing to bury the hatchet with Adobe to help publishers deliver a great product on the iPad.

2. Consumers don’t want to pay for content on different screens. They want new content.

Due to the Adobe problem,
Condé will have “two parallel development tracks going until the
relationship between Apple and Adobe is clear,” according to MediaMemo. That means that unlike the Wired prototype, the publishers’
magazines will have simpler iPad specific apps that are pretty
similar to what Condé already offers iPhone users. While Condé has seen a lot of success with that model — the publisher sold 15,000 copies of the January issue of GQ and almost 7,000 of the December issue on the iPhone — consumers aren’t likely to pay for the same product on a different screen.

3. Apple holds onto consumer data for all applications sold through the iTunes store.

Aside from the additional revenue stream they’re hoping to get from iPad-friendly apps, Condé Nast has the most to gain from culling consumer data from its mobile offerings to better serve advertising to its audience (and charge more money for that advertising). But Apple does not share consumer data for products sold through the iTunes store. Meaning that publishers are still in a pretty weak position with Apple partnerships. Condé Nast is hoping to get around this by asking consumers to register for content on the iPad and communicating with them directly. That’s after already registering and purchasing these media products in the iTunes store. Which could easily leave consumers feeling like marketing guineau pigs.

4. Being first to market doesn’t matter.

The iPhone may have transformed the mobile market, creating a revenue
stream for many companies that had previously had trouble charging for digital
content. But it’s not clear where the iPad will fit in the
current marketplace. One of the many concerns involving the product is
that it does not replace a digital device, but rather adds another device for people to use to connect
to the internet. If that is the case, it will be a long time before the
iPad sees the sort of adoption rates that have made the iPhone so popular, making it a much less impressive revenue stream than many publishers are expecting. Condé Nast CEO Charles H. Townsend tells The New York Times his company wants to “take a leadership position” in regards to the iPad, but they could be setting themselves up as a case study for other publishers to learn from. Many publishers sat back and watched as smaller, more nimble companies launched iPhone apps in their area of expertise, but getting on the iPad first isn’t as important as getting the delivery right.

5. First generation Apple products never work.

Granted, magazine publishers are in dire straights right now. But there are too many unknown variables involving the iPad. Sinking large quantities of money into iPad product development could be premature. Townsend tells The Times, “We feel confident enough that consumers will want our content in this
new format that we are committing the resources necessary to be there. How large a revenue stream digitized content
represents is an answer we hope to learn through this process.”

But while Townsend is confident, the iPad isn’t shipping until April, and production delays are rumored to push that date back even further. Consumers haven’t yet had a chance to prove that they want to own an iPad, let alone purchase new products for the device. Especially when the interface is similar enough to make sharing apps between the iPhone and the iPad seem like the easiest thing to do, iPad specific products are going to be a hard sell.

Image: Condé Nast

I’m still not personally sold on the idea that I need an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad, and while I might buy one anyway with some excuse that I ought to have one for work purposes, I very much like what I’m seeing in the publishing industry in response to the fledgling product.

First, consider the impending dust-up between Conde Nast, Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE), and Apple. Conde Nast is the publisher of “GQ,” “Vanity Fair,” “The New Yorker,” “Glamour,” and “Wired,” but most importantly, Conde Nast is a respected publisher that’s looking to do something cool, new and proactive for its magazines — create digital versions that push the boundaries of digital magazine delivery.

There’s already a “GQ” app for the iPhone and iPod touch, but it’s not nearly as full-featured as the Wired Tablet App video demo that shows off some interesting interactive possibilities for digital magazine content.

Of course, the demo wasn’t built for an Apple iPad; it uses Adobe’s publishing tools like InDesign along with its AIR, which lets developers use Flash in addition to other technologies (all of which basically gets confusing for everyone who’s not into developing apps).

The short deal is, Apple won’t support Adobe Flash with its iPad, so publishers will need to either accept Apple’s App Store world to play on the iPad or ignore it completely and develop for everyone else.

Welcome to the Tech World, Conde Nast

Neither option is particularly compelling. While the iPad will likely be a raging success , it’ll also help generate a market for alternatives — more so than what’s already out there. If the iPad turns into the iPod of the e-book and tablet world, dominating it easily, that would be a shame.

I’m guessing the Dells and HPs of the world, not to mention the Android backers, are not willing to concede just yet. Plus, if Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) wakes from its slumber in Redmond and decides it wants to be a player in the new world of consumer mobility, I would actually welcome that — even though someone needs to be slapped for the “Windows Phone 7 Series” name.

So, Conde Nast finds itself in a wonderful new world ripe with electronic possibilities where two tech giants are battling for territory. I think this competition is good — definitely rough and confusing for the short term, but ultimately, I think it’ll help generate attention and investment in creating compelling mobile content.

Welcome, AP

Meanwhile, The Associated Press is already willing to join the mobile party. The organization is creating a new division called the “AP Gateway” that will be the launching pad for applications to run on the iPad. There’s already a decent Mobile News AP app for the iPhone, which I happen to use, but again, it’s fairly limited in comparison to what AP Gateway (NYSE: GTW) might be able to create for a screen as expansive as the iPad’s.

Along the same lines, if AP Gateway can help its member newspapers deliver truly local content for the iPad via some sort of shared application or app foundation, lots of newspapers will be able to get onto mobile screens without major investment (or costly mistakes). A really good local mobile news app . . . now that’s definitely a feature that I would add to the “pro” column for buying an iPad.

The Time Is Already Right

Of the 80 percent of Americans who have cellphones, 33 percent of them are getting at least some form of their news online via mobile handsets, found a recent study by Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Personally, I spend a lot of my waking hours in front of a big screen connected to my MacBook, but surprisingly, I get quite a bit of my news from my iPhone. It’s just handy, and fills in the gaps nicely. We will no doubt see some trickle-down action from new iPad app dev efforts for the iPhone, too.

Thanks in no small part to Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and its Kindle investment, e-books are gaining a pretty good head of steam. Amazon might find itself on the wrong side of the tracks, unfortunately, in favor of do-it-all tablets, but the fact remains: Apple has been getting an inordinate amount of press coverage due to its iPad.

Everything but the Stink

The question is, can we credit (or blame) the iPad for generating all this mobile action? Maybe not the iPad alone, but it’s certainly the latest catalyst. No, you’ve got to go back to the iPhone, which made consuming media from your smartphone a worldwide phenomenon. That’s the first catalyst.

The second is the Apple App Store and its App Store developer program. Developers answered the call, and Apple delivers the apps to consumers. Despite the hiccups, it’s still an effective ecosystem.

If you add up all this action, I think we’re going to get a lot of fantastic content options for mobile devices in 2010 — even if you don’t pony up for an iPad.

Oh, one last thing: I already subscribe to the print edition of “GQ,” but if I can get a full-fledged copy of the magazine on an iPad — without all the smelly cologne ads printed on hard-to-ignore thicker paper stock — I’m all for it. I just hope the debut of a scratch-and-sniff screen that generates scent is a long, long way off.

Huge Increase in iPad App Development

Since the iPad’s announcement, development of iPad apps has exploded. Analytics firm Flurry reported that the number of new App Store projects using Flurry analytics tripled from December, indicating a fiery fervor for development.

Magazine Publishing Joins the App Fray

E-reading will be huge on the iPad. Condé Nast, one of publishing’s most imposing figures, announced that a handful of its popular magazines – Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour — will be viewable on the iPad in new formats for the tablet. The announcement is expected to open the floodgates for other publishers.

The News Giant

In addition to magazines, developers clearly want the iPad to be a powerful portal for the news. The Associated Press announced its plans to develop an app today, with an interesting twist. The AP wants to charge users for the news as part of the organization’s plans to generate revenue from online content; theNew York Times has a similar plan. With so much free news on the Web, it’s debatable whether users will drop subscription fees for premium content from the industry’s most respected sources.

But there’s a hitch. Since the iPad does not support Adobe Flash, many publishers are faced with a difficult decision: adapt to Apple standards or stick with Adobe.

iPad: Anti-Porn

Last week brought a huge scuffle in the App Store. Apple played moral censor and banished more than 5000 sexy apps. The company was called out on its selectivity and wasforced to explain itself.

Since all iPhone apps will function on the iPad, don’t expect anything remotely kinky on the tablet or for Apple to shift its family-friendly stance for the iPad.

Wait, There’s More

Big companies make big announcements, but it’s the others you’ll have to keep an eye on. Sourcebits, one of the iPhone’s biggest app contributors, shifted half of its 150-strong development team to work on iPad apps.

You can also a ton of games from a variety of developers to reap the benefits of the 9.7-inch screen. Tech bloggers are already drafting wish lists for touchscreen entertainments. It’s also interesting to keep note of iPhone app developers — such as thecreators of Chordica, a music-making app — to join up with either similar products or brand-new releases.

The War for Ultimate e-Reader Status

The iPad’s most important app is iBooks — Apple’s colorful e-reader and answer to Amazon’s e-ink Kindle. Since iBooks was announced, there have been a multitude of scuffles, most notably a pricing war that caused major publishers to balk at Amazon’s $9.99 price point. Apple’s newfound influence on the e-book market could spell bad news for Amazon but a diversity of options for consumers.

Accessorize!

What’s a fragile Apple device without a slew of accessories? Apple has already unveiled a bunch, including a dock, external keyboard, cases, and camera connection kits.

Meanwhile, outside developers such as Belkin, Scosche, and Griffin — all prolific iPod and iPhone accessory-makers — are clamoring to push out new iPad products. From these companies we can expect more docks, more cases and more screen guards.

Some accessory-makers, like GelaSkins, need to wait to nab an iPad before releasing protective cases, but expect to do so within days of the tablet’s release.

Sales Beget Sales

There’s a lot of money to be made from the iPad, but it all depends on whether consumers actually make the purchase. It appears that the more we gab about the iPad, the less interested the public gets. But given the manic zeal typically associated with the release of new Apple products, expect the Apple Store to sell out and the queues to form.

t seems Condé Nast is embracing the Apple iPad as its one and true saviour. Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, GQ, Glamour, and Wired are all getting gussied up for Apple’s WonderPad, according to the New York Times. Hey if you’re gonna do it, might as well start with the best.

I say, more power to them. If anyone can create a digital marketplace for a dying industry that has consumed much of my working life, it’s the Condé Nasties.

But I fear the ship for most publications may have already sailed. It may simply be too late — because people are too used to getting sub-standard content for free.

(Now I’m going to take off my geek hat and put on my editorial chapeau. Please talk among yourselves while I slip into something even grungier).

Related Story:

Apple iPad – a great tool for ‘creativity on the go’

Here’s the nasty little secret most publishers would rather you not know: Their online versions aren’t nearly as good as their print versions. The reasons are pretty obvious.

The premium rates publications charge(d) for print advertising subsidized a great many things — like teams of researchers, fact checkers, copy editors, and multiple line editors — that online ad models simply don’t support. So the very first thing that goes when a publication moves online is quality control. When faced with producing lesser-quality content or no content at all, that’s an easy call to make.

Both MacRumors’ Arnold Kim and the Examiner have heard from tipsters that Apple stores will begin selling the iPad on Friday, March 26 at 6 p.m. The Examiner added that “People who camp out for the iPad will receive a special gift.”

That would be similar to the launch of the original iPhone, which began selling 6 p.m. on Friday, June 29, 2007. (I don’t remember receiving any gifts when I camped out for the iPhone, but employees did hand out some coffee.)

Apple has said the iPad without 3G will begin shipping late March. The iPad including 3G should be shipping about 30 days later, according to Apple.

An analyst spread a rumor earlier this week that tight inventories might delay iPad shipments by a month, but an Apple spokeswoman told Wired.com that the iPad was on schedule to ship by late March.

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/ipad-rumor-launch/#ixzz0h75UXmuV

First of all, let’s answer generally: what is the iPad?

The iPad, despite the name, is not a next-gen version of menstrual control. It is a tablet PC: the next evolutionary step of a pen-and-paper notebook. A tablet PC is roughly the size of a clipboard, but rather than pen and paper, it is equipped with a touch screen. Think of an iPhone without the phone, and several times bigger.

Tablet PC’s, particularly the iPad, work to replace mini laptops as the portable notebook king of the future. If you imagine the future with your coffee table being touch screen and summoning the headlines of today’s local news while an android brings you breakfast, then the iPad fits right into your fantasy. However, that’s not to say this new Apple technology is perfect.

While the iPad does have internet capability, it relies heavily on AT&T’s spotty 3g network. Outside of Youtube, the iPad won’t be playing any videos anytime soon because of its lack of a Flash player—a glaring omission no tech junky will take sitting down. Perhaps worst of all is its apparent lack of multitasking windows, forcing you to focus on one thing at a time, a flaw that makes you want to go back to your shiny new laptop with Windows 7.

Shortcomings aside, the iPad does prove a bit more useful to college students, and could make life on campus several times easier.

Consider that the iPad can work as a notebook. Taking notes in class would be like typing on a keyboard but without the clicking noise. Your four pounds of three-subject notebooks turn into 1.6 pounds of sleek Apple technology. The iPad also comes with a built-in calendar, making books pretty much the only thing you need to carry in your book bag.

That is, until they upload text books to the iBook website. Currently, the iPad has an iBook store that sells various types of books and novels. Assuming this bookstore continues growing, students may find themselves only carrying and iPad around, rather than a backpack filled with books and paper. On top of that, apps are offered to any iPad user, including all iPhone apps and specially-adapted iPad applications.

The most expensive iPad (64gb with WiFi and the 3g network) will be selling for around $829, while the cheapest (16gb with WiFi only) will be around $499. I don’t suggest you give up all your paper notebooks quite yet—maybe wait for an update that includes a flash player. But if you have the cash, splurge and get yourself the do-it-all iPad.

“Even without the direct investment of a factory, it can cost these companies about $1 billion to create a smartphone chip from scratch,” reports NY Times‘ Ashlee Vance.

That makes Apple’s $278 million acquisition of semiconductor manufacturer PA Semi look like pocket change. And hopefully Apple’s investment will pay off not just for the company, but also for iPad owners: The 1-GHz A4 chip, Apple promises, will help preserve the iPad’s battery for up to 10 hours of active use and one month of standby.

And considering the enormous cost of developing this chip, iPhone owners can have faith that the A4 will most likely appear in future iPhones. Maybe we’ll see an A4-powered iPhone debut this summer, and all our complaints about battery life will disappear. After that, all we’d have left to complain about is AT&T.

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/apple-a4-chip/#ixzz0gXPbPl3y

First: There’s No Flash.

Theoretically, flash could show up on the iPad in the future, but as we pointed out in our article on why we don’t develop in flash, we’re not betting on it. The source code isn’t very well-optimized for mobile smartphones, and Apple is already taking a practical/political stance on the plugin that suggests they’re going to heavily push HTML5 instead.

How does this affect us? Well, for one thing, flash remains 100% non-searchable. If you embed your content in flash, you not only cannot be properly indexed by Google, but you’re increasingly going to miss out on a ton of mobile traffic coming your way, and now on future search traffic from the iPad. If you build a fall-back site for iPhone/iPad/non-flash users, great, but that’s double the development costs and time, and requires you to update across two platforms. While Flash is plenty useful for some things, the fact that it’s not on the iPad is an important harbinger for where search and internet marketing are going in the future.

Second: It’s a New Paradigm.

While everyone was busy complaining that the iPad was “nothing but a large iPod touch”, some key writers online (especially Steven Frank) realized that inherent in that very statement is an entirely new way to think about how we use computers.

We’ve been using what are essentially “swiss army knives” for the last 20 years, and for a huge number of users, that level of functionality is absolutely, completely unnecessary. At the same time that this concept opens up the computer where it doesn’t really need to be open, it also makes computers incredibly complex and annoying for people like our collective grandmothers.

That’s a good metaphor for us — we often re-write clients’ copy in order to cater to a metaphorical grandmother, not because we’re trying to “dumb anything down,” but rather because it means you’re explaining your product in simple but honest, respectful language.

If the iPad becomes that one magical computing device that finally gets the grandmothers of the world onto the internet in greater numbers than they already are — and I already know it is the first and only computer (besides the iPhone) I have ever considered trying to get my own grandmother to use — that will be a massive, massive flow of new users streaming onto the internet.

They are going to be searching for things, and they are going to be buying things, and they will be doing so from their iPads and future iterations of the device. If it is a success, it will bring a mass of people online who are just not going to make the effort otherwise.

Three: It Will Probably Change the Advertising Game.

Both Google and Apple are pushing mobile advertising, and the iPad, for all that’s been written of it existing in the ‘netbook’ class of computers, is likely to be considered more of a mobile device than anything short of the iPhone itself. Hell, it runs the iPhone OS, after all.

That means those same ads that are quietly showing up in various apps right now, in what remains a small-but-about-to-massively-explode market? A huge part of that market will be taken up by iPad clicks.

Personally, I’ve never once clicked on an AdMob ad, mainly because I didn’t want to bust out of my app and see some ad — it just doesn’t seem natural. But if the iPad eventually introduces some sort of rudimentary form of multitasking, or the advertising models take advantage of its new “Popover” UI element, then I’ll probably be singing a different tune.

That means in a few short months, we could be optimizing your AdWords campaigns to be showing up inside the latest and most popular iPad app, where a customized landing page with a format that none of us have even thought of yet will be showing up.

It’ll be an exciting time, and we’ll be there for it.

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According to the survey, which was mentioned in a research note to clients by RBC analyst Mike Abramsky, 13 percent of the 3,200 folks surveyed said they were likely to buy an iPad when it’s released. According to ChangeWave, initial iPhone demand was at 9 percent prior to the launch of the original iPhone.

Perhaps more importantly, the survey found that just 8 percent of respondents bristled at iPad pricing, compared to the whopping 28 percent that scoffed at the iPhone’s original pricing.

The survey found that 19 percent of respondents who said they might buy an iPad would pick up the entry level, $499 model. Another 19 percent of respondents said they would buy the top of the line $829 version. The other versions of the iPad had less interest.

Another interesting fact: 68 percent of respondents said they plan to use the iPad to surf the Web, while 44 percent will check e-mail, and 37 percent will read e-books.

Writing in a research note to clients, Abramsky said that while he doesn’t expect the iPad to enjoy the kind of success the iPhone did on its original launch day, the survey “data portends well for healthy initial iPad uptake.”

Welcome to the nasty side of Jobs’s famous Reality Distortion Field. The fun side had its turn when Jobs unveiled the iPad tablet computer in San Francisco last month. The dark side came several days later, when Jobs sat down with select Journal staff on thethird floor of the News Corporation building in New York as part of a broader mediatour.

Like other newspapers, the Journal is heavily invested in Flash as a way to deploy not only video but also slide shows and other interactive infographics and news applications. So when Jobs showed off his iPad, editors were sure to ask him about the device’s lack of Flash, at least when they weren’t pissing him off by posting to Twitter from the device.

Jobs was brazen in his dismissal of Flash, people familiar with the meeting tell us. He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy.

But he also called Flash a “CPU hog,” a source of “security holes” and, in perhaps the most grievous insult a famous innovator can utter, a dying technology. Jobs said of Flash, “We don’t spend a lot of energy on old technology.” He then compared Flash to other obsolete systems Apple got people to ditch….

• … like the floppy drive, famously absent in iMac,
• …. old data ports, including even Apple’s own FireWire 400, gone from iPods andnow all Macbooks,
• ….CCFL backlit LCD screens, now entirely replaced in Apple’s lineup by LED-powered screens (except for this). (Correction: We originally said Apple replaced LCDs with LEDs; LEDs are a type of LCD backlighting.)
• …and even the CD, with Jobs apparently crediting Apple’s iPod, iTunes Store, CD-ripping software and “Rip, Mix, Burn” campaign with doing in the old music medium (sort of: though CD sales are in free fall, around 300 million were sold last year in the U.S. alone, 80 percent of all albums).

No doubt, Flash is a known CPU hog and security problem on Macs, a major source of system headaches that, infuriatingly for Apple, it can’t control. Even factoring in the fact that Flash can’t leverage graphics processors built into many Apple devices, it’s a pig.

But let’s compare apples to appples. At the Journal, Jobs claimed the iPad’s battery performance would be degraded from 10 hours to 1.5 hours if it had to spend its CPU cycles decoding Flash, we’re told. That sounds like an unfair comparison; the iPad would unlikely achieve its advertised 10 hours of maximum battery life while continuously playing video of any sort, iPad optimized or not.

But Jobs offered more than a thorough evisceration of Flash; he also used his Reality Distortion Field to sell theJournal on alternatives to the technology.

Ditching Flash would be “trivial,” he suggested.

For one, he suggested the newspaper use the H.264 video compression system (“codec” in geek), which is compatible with both the iPad and the Flash Player installed on most Web browsers.

Jobs reportedly said the Journal would find “It’s trivial to create video in H.264″ instead of Flash. Depending on how the Journal handled the video conversion, that could be true, and for the moment H. 264 is a cheap and effective way to distribute Web video. But we assume Jobs didn’t mention that H. 264 is patented, privately licensed and could get expensive fast.

Even setting that aside, H. 264 does not fully replace Flash. While it can handle video, it does not comprise a system for the rapid development of interactive graphics, as Flash does. Yet Jobs also reportedly said Flash would be “trivial” in this sense, as well — that it would be “trivial” to make an entire copy of the Journal website with the non-video Flash content also redone.

That’s just not right; even assuming the Journal could duplicate its Flash slideshows, infographics and other news apps using iPad-friendly technologies like Javascript, it would take a decidedly nontrivial amount of time and effort to create or acquire such a system, hire staff who understand it as well as Flash, train staff on how to use it, and integrate it into the Journal’s editorial workflow. It might be a great way to advance web standards like HTML5, and a great way to get the Journal on more devices, but it would hardly be “trivial.”

It’s not clear to us how assembled Journal honchos collectively reacted to these statements, but its worth noting that shortly after the meeting, on Feb. 10, editorial board member Holman Jenkins issued a WSJ op-ed comparing Apple to Microsoft and saying the company “is in danger of becoming preoccupied with zero-sum maneuvering versus hated rivals.” His primary and lead example of this sort of “maneuvering” was Jobs’ decision to keep Flash off the iPad.

Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field may need a bit of fine tuning, then. But we have a feeling the Journal will swallow its objections and hop on the iPad gravy train. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has had its impressive moments of influence in the history of American conservatism, but these days that’s little match for the power of Steve Jobswhen he puts on a black turtleneck and strides onto a stage.

(Power aside, if you’ve got any informed opinions on how difficult it would be to replace Flash in the editorial workflow of a large newspaper or magazine, we’d love to hear them.)

(Update: Added some context on Flash’s objectively sucky performance.)

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This is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata had this to say about the Apple iPad, “It was a bigger iPod Touch” and that it delivered “no surprises.” Umm. Correct me if I’m wrong, Iwata-san, but isn’t that exactly what the DSi XL is? I initially pooh-poohed the iPad, but it has tremendous potential and developers have had, what, two days with it? More on that later.

It goes without saying that Apple’s lack of Flash support is a major dealbreaker, but Apple doesn’t think to seem so because the demo video of the iPad clearly shows the device running Flash. What’s the deal?

(More on Techland: Hands-on With the Apple iPad)

Just like they did with Cisco in 2007, Apple is preparing itself for a round of fistacuffs with Fujitsu over the iPad name, which the Japanese company trademarked in 2003.

“It’s our understanding that the name is ours,” said Masahiro Yamane, director of Fujitsu’s public relations division.

(More on Techland: 19 Rejected Names For The Apple iPad)

Read more: http://techland.com/2010/01/29/today-in-apple-ipad-news/#ixzz0fsoV0ITY

Despite its lovely design, beefier core apps, and new e-book features and store, the iPad is hampered by a well-documented string of missing features: a camera, 16:9 support, Flash support (seriously?), multitasking, SD card slot, HDMI or high-res video output support, USB ports, GPS, and so on. Plus, it’s exclusive to the AT&T network (again: seriously?) in this iteration, the pricing scheme is overly complex, and while I’m not sure it’s genuinely overpriced, it’s nevertheless expensive, and you can’t imagine the price going much lower without crashing into the 64GB iPod Touch and making the iPad look a lot like a sucker’s buy.

OK, but all that said, I think we all need to take a deep breath and remember: it’s not that the iPad is a failure. It’s just a product ahead of its time. No one should actually buy this iPad–between its inevitable first-generation bugs, fulfillment problems, and buyer’s remorse over added features and price drops, it’s heartbreak waiting to happen. Try to think of the iPad as, like, a proof of concept. A concept car, even. A work in progress, really.

Now, I know tablet PCs are nothing new, and I know Microsoft’s been trying to get the idea off the ground for a decade now. But this is the concept design for the e-reader/media device we’ll all own in three to five years–when every publication is available as a feature-rich, interactive reading experience, when Apple (or someone else) has introduced the Newsstand app store with some actual newspaper and magazine content partners, and when prices are in the $100 to $200 range and 3G wireless is not a $130 add-on (SERIOUSLY?), and the idea of consuming just 250MB of data a month on a true multimedia device is recognized as the belly-busting joke that it is.
Right now, the iPad is a product in search of a market. It’s kind of poorly implemented, feature-wise; it’s been poorly articulated, market-wise; and it’s hard to imagine why on earth you’d ever need such a thing at such a price. But I think there will be a market for a touch-screen, all-in-one device that’s more than a Kindle and less than a laptop, and it’s easy to imagine getting all my media on one slick Internet-connected device that also works as one heck of a pretty digital picture frame.

Here’s what Apple needs to do: stop trying to convince me that an iPad is better than a Netbook. That’s not the point. I have plenty of things in my life that can bring me a calendar, music, photos, and touch-screen painting. I don’t need more of that (no matter how pretty you make it). Don’t try to put the iPad between a laptop and a smart phone–that positioning doesn’t make any sense to anyone, and no one needs that.

Start pitching this thing as the actual replacement for paper. Get some serious content deals with periodicals and papers, and maybe even offer a combined subscription service that lets you choose 8 or 10 papers and magazines for a flat fee. Get the bookstore up to Amazon stock levels, put an e-ink/LCD hybrid display in the next version, and get serious about what this really is: a multimedia reader. (Also, get your product line and pricing in order and stop trying to act like a 3G chip really costs an extra $130.) See you in three to five years!

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The internal fight might also determine how relevant — and profitable — the nation’s most prominent newspaper can remain in the digital future. Which is probably why there’s reportedly so much sniping over who gets to control the iPad edition internally.

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.

On the other side, you have the Times‘ digital operation, which is pushing to charge $10 per month for the iPad edition and is said to be up in arms over print circulation’s pricing. The digital side will provide interactive content for the iPad no matter what happens, but does not want print circulation to have control of pricing, marketing and other facets of the product. It’s something of an uphill battle since print circ has had control of other e-editions, for example for the Kindle, which are also seen on the digital side as overpriced.

The dispute has apparently escalated all the way to the top of the Times Building, and top executives — presumably the same ones who secretly dined with Apple CEO Steve Jobs — are now debating which way to go. Among those supporting the $20-30 per month print circulation side is, we’re told, New York Times Media Group president Scott Heekin-Canedy.

Even by the standards of the old-fashioned Times, it would be shockingly retrograde to charge such a huge sum for internet content to protect the fading print edition. It would also be self defeating, exploding the paper’s best chance yet to charge readers for its digital product. (Even at $10 per month, the iPad Times will have to compete with the free-through-2011 Web edition.)

But it’s almost as shocking that the Times Company is having a discussion over this question at all. Really? You’re going to ruin this little gift from Steve Jobs? You’re still not sure if you’re ready to commit to this internet thing? Sigh.

If you know more about this debate, or similar debates at other publishers, we’d love to hear from you.

Update Feb. 17: Several readers and email correspondents have asked why the New York Times is even debating pricing for the iPad edition, given that it is essentially a clone of the Times Reader for regular computers, and given that the regular computer Times Reader costs $14.95 per month. The answer is in this followup post.

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Those familiar with the iPad simulator say that its version of mobile Safari in iPhone OS 3.2 SDK is not readily accessible, but can be opened in a roundabout way. The iPad browser should be instantly familiar to anyone who has spent time browsing the Web on the iPhone or iPod touch.

Though the software has some issues and is not yet ready to be officially accessible to developers through the iPad simulator, it can still be used to browse the Web and access popular sites. It also offers a glimpse of how users will interact with the iPad when it ships in late March.

Like on the iPhone, users will have the ability to add bookmark icons to the home screen of the iPad. These will offer direct links to specific Web sites through Safari. The browser also features a drop-down bookmarks menu that looks similar to the one on the iPhone.

Typing into the search box creates a pop-up of as many as 10 suggested searches through Google. The default engine can also be changed to Yahoo, which also provides its own suggestions. Names and passwords can also be saved and automatically filled in online forms.

Part 1: You’ll stop thinking about files and start thinking about pictures.

Looking at the feedback I received from the previous two iPad posts I wrote, (Post 1 andPost 2) I began to understand what some people are missing about the iPad. They are trying to push a round peg into a square hole. Some want the iPad to be an iPhone. Some want it to be camera. Most want it to work like a laptop. It’s none of those things nor should it be. As I’ve said in the previous posts, if you want a laptop buy a laptop. We already have things like a laptop available to us. This is a NEW thing – a new category. And it’s designed to get you focused on CONTENT not FILES.

One photographer wrote me a very, very, very long email (3000 words or so) explaining how the iPad was a failure, etc.

He kept saying things like – “It won’t handle RAW files.” “How will I move files from the iPad to the computer?” His constant use of the word FILES got me thinking. This guy doesn’t understand Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs doesn’t talk about files. He talks about pictures and music, etc. After all, these FILES (in the context of this post) are pictures. It’s the pictures that matter not the files. Apple makes products you can DO stuff with. And in this case, you can use the iPad to look at and share pictures, not files.

Interacting with PICTURES on the iPad is going to be very different from the way it’s done on a computer. There’s no mouse. There’s no trackpad or trackball. There’s no programming involved. There’s no learning curve. Three year old kids will start using an iPad successfully within three minutes because the iPad is about the content – and the interface that lets you access that content. More on the interface in my next iPad post.

In this series, I will start to lay out the case for how and why I think the iPad will change photography. Now before you get too excited, I’m not talking about major change, but IMPORTANT change.

Last week I mentioned that the iPad is a CONTENT machine – aimed at consuming it not creating it. Today, I want to talk about the interface.

The iPad doesn’t come with a pointer, a trackpad, a trackball or a mouse. It relies on multi-touch technology. If you’ve seen the Tom Cruise movie where Cruise uses his hand to interact with a computer while hunting for a criminal you understand multi-touch. If you have an Apple iPhone or laptop you probably use multi-touch right now. And that is one very crucial factor in the iPad’s ability to share photographs.

Millions (and I do mean millions) of people are already familiar with Apple’s multi-touch technology. They use it every day. So that means the iPad will come to their door ready to use. No training required. Heck, you won’t even need to read the manual.

Laptops, tablet computers and such are much more complicated. Small children can use a mult-touch device right out of the box – as can elderly folks who think “learning” a computer is too big a task.

I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. When I first got the iPhone I put a portfolio of my wolf pics on the phone. I knew my neighbor’s five-year-old daughter loved wolves so I just handed her the phone and asked her if she wanted to look at some wolf photos. She got excited, literally grabbed the phone from me, turned it horizontally (since the first pic in the show was horizontal) and started enjoying the photo. Then I simply said, “Go on to the next one now.” She looked at me funny but then back at the iPhone and sure enough, she just organically knew to try swiping the image. When it worked she let out a little yelp of happiness. I then showed her (one time) how to pinch to zoom in and within a few minutes she had mastered the whole thing.

This is the stuff Apple does very, very well. And you can bet it’s going to make the iPad one of the most consumer-friendly pieces of technology we’ve ever seen.

Apple has worked to expand multi-touch on the iPad. There are numerous new “gestures” planned for the iPad.

Bundles (or piles or stacks) can be made by holding a finger on one picture and then tapping others to group together.

New Resize handle makes it easy to tap and grab one or more images and resize them.

New page navigation sidebar lets you see thumbnails of pages to select.

New context-based keyboards will automatically resize to fit the app you’re using.

There are many more like floating control panels, optimized views, more spread and pinch options, popovers, dragging to create lists, etc.

And this doesn’t even count all the new gestures we’ll see once the third-party developers get into writing new ones.

In short, I see the ability to interact with the iPad via multi-touch as a new opportunity to show off your photo portfolio with flair. Not only will you be able to show pictures, but if you become skilled at multi-touch gestures, you’ll be able to do it with style.

The ability to use the iPad as a portable portfolio is probably my main attraction to the device. And portability is the next thing I’ll cover in part 3 of the series.

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1. For our analysis, we have taken the case of a book thats released in hardcover as well as the iBookstore. We have assumed the list prices to be: $26 for the hardcover, and $14.99 for the eBook on iBookstore on the iPad.

2. We have assumed that the new “agency model” will be used for all books sold on the iBookstore for split of revenue between Apple and the Publishers.

Note:  The “agency” model is based on the idea that the publisher is selling to the consumer and, therefore, setting the price, and any “agent”, which would usually be a retailer but wouldn’t have to be, that creates that sale would get a “commission” from the publisher for doing so.

The wholesale model, on the other hand, is when the publisher “sells” the book to an intermediary (i.e. Amazon, Borders, B&N) based on the publisher’s established retail price and a discount schedule, typically around 50 percent. Then the purchaser resells that e-book at whatever price they like. (Source: ZDNet)

(Pls note that the most important point about the agency model, is who “owns” the sales data – Apple or the Publisher. This is not very clear at this point. As you can imagine, this sales data is the core strength of Amazon at this point)

3. We have not considered any revenue/profit dilution due to piracy, since we assume that the Books in iBookstore would be ‘digitally locked’

4. Royalties used are as follows: approx. 6% is the royalty paid for a paperback, and for eBooks, royalties might be on the way up, but we dont know if this will be a trend. We have taken a 20% royalty on “net proceeds” – basically 20 percent of whatever the publisher receives from the retailer (in our case, this would be 70 percent of the list price on the iBookstore).

5. We have only considered the royalties for the author and not the “advance” because, by definition, this is an advance on future royalties.

6.  As expected, we’ll start everything from the list price. (For now, we’ll assume that the new model based on “actual amount received” by the publisher will not be used, and that royalties will continue to be a percentage of the list price).

7. This analysis ONLY considers sales through Apple’s iBookstore. We’ll assume that sales elsewhere will have no impact on our calculations (obviously wrong, but for now, we can go ahead. we’ll cover this particular assumption in a separate post).

E-books for the iPad have been the subject of debate since Steve Jobs announced the tablet in late January. First, there was the spat over e-book prices, with Apple’s agency model taking Amazon by storm. Many said that Amazon’s DRM was a drawback, but now reports say Apple will use similar technology for its iBook store.

The L.A. Times report quotes unnamed sources from the publishing industry saying Apple is preparing to use the FairPlay copy protection technology, previously used to protect songs in iTunes and now movies and other content, to curb piracy in the iBook store.

Apple’s FairPlay system is used to restrict the number of devices that can access content you purchase; it’s usually set to 5 computers, iPods or iPhones, and so on. Music from the iTunes store was the first to see this system dropped in 2009, though other types of content from the marketplace still use FairPlay.

The iBook store on the iPad will sell e-books in the ePub open standard, something that Apple has been praised for. Yet the ePub standard allows for proprietary DRM tools, such as FairPlay. And as e-books are starting to take off, wrapping them in DRM could deter some from pirating the e-books from the iPad iBook store.

The five publishers that already inked deals with Apple to sell e-books on the iPad — Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette — are said to have opted in for FairPlay in their e-books, the L.A. Times report implies. Some publishers though, such as O’Reilly Media, are said not to embrace FairPlay

Original story - www.pcworld.com/article/189419

It’s not unexplainable, given that AT&T is the partner for the 3G service, and so I guess they have a vested interest in selling the devices. Still, when you think of “tablet computer designed for consumption of media and minor household tasks,” you don’t really think of AT&T. In fact, without a phone on it at all, it’s just strange to think that the iPad would have a place in AT&T stores anywhere.

But if the 3G versions will make money for the phone company (and we’ll bet they will), they might as well sell them. If the rumor is true, and the AT&T store is closer to you than the Apple store, you might as well check there on release day (remembering that 3G iPads will be released after their WiFi-only cousins). In the meantime, let’s all hope their 3G network holds up under the increased strain.

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Today’s Apple rumor roundup is brought to you by the word “money.” First up is a piece carried by the New York Times citing no less than three people familiar with provisions that would require publishers to discount best seller e-book prices sold on Apple’s iPad. In other words, below the $12.99 to $14.99 price dictated by the new agency model — prices Amazon is being strong-armed into accepting. Apple’s prices could be as low as Amazon’s previously magical $9.99 price point for some titles just as soon as they hit the New York Times best-seller lists. Discounted hardcover editions could be priced at $12.99 even if they do not hit the best-seller list.

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, has a pair of sources saying that HP will be meeting with its US and Taiwanese partners to “tweak prices and features” on its upcoming Slate. The move is meant to capitalize on a recent uptick in tablet interest with hopes of undercutting the $629 price of the similarly spec’d 3G-enabled iPad. Although it was introduced before the iPad, HP deliberatly held back on announcing a ship date or pricing so that it could tweak the Slate accordingly.

Also noteworthy is renewed attention given to Microsoft’s Courier. The WSJ says that Microsoft continues work on its two-screen Courier tablet at its Alchemy Ventures incubation laboratory in Seattle. However, it’s still unclear whether Microsoft will launch the device.

Rather than a static version of the print magazine or a fully-recoded HTML Web page, the app combines the best of both worlds: the meticulousness of a carefully-designed page along with Web-like interactive elements such as Flash videos and audio.

These are all created using Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 software, Jeremy Clark, senior experience design manager at Adobe, said this week. That saves time and effort for Wired, which, like many magazine publishers, uses Creative Suite — especially its InDesign app — to produce its magazine.

Based on the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), the Wired prototype will be released this summer for the iPhone and iPad, said Clark.

It also takes advantage of an upcoming software from Adobe called Packager for iPhone that will be a part of Adobe Flash Professional CS5 (Creative Suite 5).

Adobe’s Packager recompiles the Wired content into the native file format of the iPhone and iPad, said Clark. That enables the digital magazine to be submitted to Apple and sold via its App Store “just like any other app,” Clark said.

That should satisfy Apple’s desire to get a cut of anything sold for the iPad, even while it sidesteps Apple’s crusade against Flash on the iPhone and iPad.

The Safari Web browser used on those devices supports only two plug-ins: Apple’s QuickTime media player and a Preview app that displays PDF files. Safari mobile blocks all other plug-ins, including Flash, RealMedia, Acrobat Reader and Windows Media Player.

The Packager is “a tricky but fascinating way to get around Apple’s restrictions,” said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies.

Adobe hasn’t settled yet on a file format for the digital edition of Wired, though it won’t be the format it favors for e-books, .ePub, said Clark.

“ePub is mainly a format to enable reflowable text on e-readers,” Clark said. For the Wired reader, “one of our main focuses is to maintain the integrity of the [page] design. We don’t want it [the text flow] to be too flexible.”

He declined to comment on whether the format chosen is likely to be an open standard such as ePub, or on what kind of digital rights management (DRM), if any, will be used.

Adobe’s software for publishing e-books, Adobe Content Server 4, lets book publishers copy-protect their ePub-based e-books with Adobe’s particular flavor of DRM. Apple will reportedly give book publishers the option to protect the e-books sold through its coming iBook store with the same Fairplay DRM it uses to protect movies sold through its iTunes store.

The Wired app is similar to another custom app Adobe built for The New York Times. Both will eventually be offered to other newspaper and magazine publishers, though Clark gave no timetable.

He said the digital magazine player will be brought to Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and other platforms. That would be broader, Clark said, than Adobe Digital Editions, the free e-book reader that runs only on Mac OS X and Windows.

Source.

Majority of the print media industry has relied on intimate consumer data to target stories and marketing to their subscribers. Apple is unwilling to share that with these companies, and instead having users go through its iTunes Store for purchases. Besides sales volume, publishers will have no other access to information, making it difficult for them to market complimentary products and services, or even stories, to their readers.

Secondly, they believe Apple’s 30% cut of the overall revenue is too high, and that it will encourage a single sale model as opposed to ongoing subscriptions. This will be similar to what the music industry faced when Apple basically conditioned users to purchase single songs over full, high marginalized albums.

All of this is making media companies uncomfortable, and they are resistant to this aggressive change. Reports are conflicting. Some suggest the publishers are highly opposed to it and may breakaway from talks, while others suggest the talks are ongoing. As the launch date nears for the iPad, we’ll soon find out how concerned publishers really are, or if they can make Apple bend backwards for them.

Source.

To add insult to injury, after the iPad tablet was introduced in January by Apple without Flash Player technology, word immediately floated up days later that CEO Steve Jobs had dissed Adobe as “”lazy” at an employee meeting.

Also, added Jobs, Adobe had let Flash become a buggy security nightmare and resource hairball Lynch was only a tiny bit less cutting in his blog reaction to the lack of Flash in the iPad at its launch: “Some have been surprised at the lack of inclusion of Flash Player on a recent magical device.”

Of course, he was not surprised at all, which is why Adobe has very busy lately, announcing a wide range of initiatives.

That included yesterday’s rollout at the Mobile World Congress in Spain of a version of its AIR software for a wide range of smartphones, as well as showing off Flash 10.1 working on Google’s Android devices.

Such effusive touting is now Lynch’s most important job as the head techie in charge of Flash. The ubiquitous video technology is under siege from not only Apple, but also many others, including Google, all of whom are aiming to make the Web work someday without the need for it in an HTML5 universe.

See AllThingsD.com for a video of Lynch himself talking about the flashpoints over Flash, including his feelings about what Jobs said and efforts to keep Flash innovative.