News Corp's 'The Daily' iPad-exclusive publication delayed "for weeks"
Apple and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. have pushed back the unveiling of The Daily, a newspaper set to debut exclusively on Apple's iPad, because of complications with a new subscription service for publications that Apple is readying, a new report claims.
Earlier this week, Forbes reported that Apple and Murdoch's media conglomerate were prepping for a Jan. 19 launch of the new publication. Additional rumors suggested that Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs would share the stage with Murdoch at the event, which will reportedly take place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
However, Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reported Thursday that next week's planned announcement has been moved back, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans. Kafka's sources told him the plans have been tabled "for weeks, not months."
Kafka's blog is part of the All Things Digital website, which is owned by News Corp.
Though News Corp. executives have been showing off a working version of The Daily's iPad app, a new subscription feature that Apple is building into iTunes is apparently the cause of the delay, the report noted.
A News Corp. PR representative contacted by Kafka confirmed the delay, but gave no further details.
Rumors of an Apple-developed subscription feature for newspapers and publications on the iPad have gained steam in recent months. Publishers initially held off on bringing their content to the iPad because Apple refused to allow subscription plans, a vital part of publishers' business models.
People magazine eventually broke the impasse in August of last year by offering subscribers free access to its iPad application.
After initial interest peaked, magazine purchases on the iPad have slowed as of late. The first iPad edition of Wired, which debuted in May, sold more than 100,000 copies, while the October and November issues sold just 22,000 and 23,000 respectively, according to one report.
Earlier this week, Forbes reported that Apple and Murdoch's media conglomerate were prepping for a Jan. 19 launch of the new publication. Additional rumors suggested that Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs would share the stage with Murdoch at the event, which will reportedly take place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
However, Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reported Thursday that next week's planned announcement has been moved back, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans. Kafka's sources told him the plans have been tabled "for weeks, not months."
Kafka's blog is part of the All Things Digital website, which is owned by News Corp.
Though News Corp. executives have been showing off a working version of The Daily's iPad app, a new subscription feature that Apple is building into iTunes is apparently the cause of the delay, the report noted.
A News Corp. PR representative contacted by Kafka confirmed the delay, but gave no further details.
Rumors of an Apple-developed subscription feature for newspapers and publications on the iPad have gained steam in recent months. Publishers initially held off on bringing their content to the iPad because Apple refused to allow subscription plans, a vital part of publishers' business models.
People magazine eventually broke the impasse in August of last year by offering subscribers free access to its iPad application.
After initial interest peaked, magazine purchases on the iPad have slowed as of late. The first iPad edition of Wired, which debuted in May, sold more than 100,000 copies, while the October and November issues sold just 22,000 and 23,000 respectively, according to one report.
Comments
Though News Corp. executives have been showing off a working version of The Daily's iPad app, a new subscription feature that Apple is building into iTunes is apparently the cause of the delay, the report noted.
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Will Apple ever stop inflicting that buggy POS iTunes onto us? They need to rebuild it from the ground up and stop with the damned feeping creaturitis.
My case might have been an exception to the rule, but in this day and age that shouldn't have happened at all.
(My theory is that Apple's approval process screwed this up, but, as we all know, we can't confirm nor deny that.)
Will Apple ever stop inflicting that buggy POS iTunes onto us? They need to rebuild it from the ground up and stop with the damned feeping creaturitis.
Are you a Windows user? I ask because in my experience iTunes works very well on my Macs.
Will Apple ever stop inflicting that buggy POS iTunes onto us? They need to rebuild it from the ground up and stop with the damned feeping creaturitis.
What's "buggy"? I'm just curious because the only time I've notice even any type of unresponsiveness is when I haven't updated to the current version... Never had a problem otherwise.
4.3 must be required.
Just throwing a thought out there, but I think it's being deliberately delayed to coincide with the iPad2 announcement.
"We have a new store... isn't it cool? Well I'd like to invite Murdock up to show his offering."
I'm betting they did a really good job on this thing... could be wrong.
Also, 'a few weeks' kind of hits a note with me...
What's "buggy"? I'm just curious because the only time I've notice even any type of unresponsiveness is when I haven't updated to the current version... Never had a problem otherwise.
Don't respond to the trolls.
Just throwing a thought out there, but I think it's being deliberately delayed to coincide with the iPad2 announcement.
"We have a new store... isn't it cool? Well I'd like to invite Murdock up to show his offering."
I'm betting they did a really good job on this thing... could be wrong.
Also, 'a few weeks' kind of hits a note with me...
Yup, I can't imagine there being a separate iPad2 announcement and separate Murdoch announcement.
We're looking at early to mid-February then, for iPad2, subscriptions and iOS 4.3.
They have to sort out this subscription things. Publishers are dying and they are basically screwed as it is, if they don't get on board properly with tablets they are not going to catch the wave of tablet and mobile viewing.
That said, I absolutely DETEST SUBSCRIPTIONS. Just give me the chance to buy your gawddammned issue plain and simple as an when I choose through the iTunes Store for $0.99, $1.99, heck even $3.99.
I absolutely DETEST SUBSCRIPTIONS. Just give me the chance to buy your gawddammned issue plain and simple as an when I choose through the iTunes Store for $0.99, $1.99, heck even $3.99.
Hear! Hear! You're probably speaking for a large majority of us magazine readers.
As for all the iTunes complaints etc. While I don't find iTunes bloated I can see how some might so I wouldn't fuss either way.
On the pricing, I actually think I might rather have a much cheaper a la carte with perhaps getting the table of contents free as a preview. Or even perhaps a choice. I mean I can buy tv shows by the episode or (often) on a season pass. Why not the same with magazines
Count on this ALL being a lie.
Will Apple ever stop inflicting that buggy POS iTunes onto us? They need to rebuild it from the ground up and stop with the damned feeping creaturitis.
On my Mac, iTunes is not buggy, but I agree that iTunes needs to be redesigned. It has become a monolith. They may have to maintain that monolith for Windows versions, but on the Mac, it should be refactored into multiple applications, and some functions brought into OSX.
At least in OSX 10.6.6, they created a Mac App application separate from iTunes. Promising.
That said, I absolutely DETEST SUBSCRIPTIONS. Just give me the chance to buy your gawddammned issue plain and simple as an when I choose through the iTunes Store for $0.99, $1.99, heck even $3.99.
Hear! Hear! You're probably speaking for a large majority of us magazine readers.
Thanks. I would venture that I speak for most people that read magazines around the world. Subscriptions is a broken and worthless old business model no longer suitable for the digital world of this decade.
There are many problems with subscriptions. The first is that in our lives we don't even know if we are going to buy the same magazine next month, nor even next week for that matter.
Subscriptions come from a time when a particular magazine covered the area you were interested in, and that was your primary channel of information; you would be willing to wait a month or so in between publications. Not only that, but you would be willing to commit to purchasing issues up to a year in advanced.
All that is gone in the digital age. Much information can be gained for free. We do not know when we are going to need such a magazine, if our interests will change, or if new fields of interest open up which are not covered by such magazines. And, the clout that major magazines carried has all but completely evaporated.
I could go on and on but I know I am preaching to the choir here.
Apple built in from start a perfectly fine business model for these greedy, decrepit and dysfunctional publishers. Apple will host, possibly promote, your app completely free and support as many downloads as people want. In-app purchases allows for a la carte purchasing of whichever issue of a magazine someone desires, with DRM all built in for free, Apple just takes its 30% cut.
Additionally, what these publishers do not realise that some magazines still have value in them that people will actually purchase back issues and not simply the latest glossy stuff. Apple will host all these back issues for free, which can be up to hundreds of issues, which is in that microeconomic sense unprofitable for Apple because of the lower number of back issue purchases, but it's completely free and profitable for the publishers - they just have to convert the back issues to app formats.
It just comes down to greed, lack of vision, and desperation. To think they wanted to actually charge *MORE* for digital versions???!!!
Apple looks like it is making a second round effort to reach out to publishers, in my view basically tossing them a lifeline. If they still sink it will have nothing to do with Apple but their own stupidity.
Apple looks like it is making a second round effort to reach out to publishers, in my view basically tossing them a lifeline. If they still sink it will have nothing to do with Apple but their own stupidity.
The article states clearly that an indefinite delay is being caused by Apple because they cannot get iTunes to work properly for subscriptions.
That does not sound like much of a lifeline to me.
What's "buggy"? I'm just curious because the only time I've notice even any type of unresponsiveness is when I haven't updated to the current version... Never had a problem otherwise.
iTunes on Windows (7 in my case) is beyond atrocious. It's incredibly slow and laggy, crashes very often (the latest version is especially bad for this), and times out when accessing the store about 25% of the time.
Compared to the Zune desktop application, the difference is night and day.
Apple built in from start a perfectly fine business model for these greedy, decrepit and dysfunctional publishers. Apple will host, possibly promote, your app completely free and support as many downloads as people want. In-app purchases allows for a la carte purchasing of whichever issue of a magazine someone desires, with DRM all built in for free, Apple just takes its 30% cut.
Additionally, what these publishers do not realise that some magazines still have value in them that people will actually purchase back issues and not simply the latest glossy stuff. Apple will host all these back issues for free, which can be up to hundreds of issues, which is in that microeconomic sense unprofitable for Apple because of the lower number of back issue purchases, but it's completely free and profitable for the publishers - they just have to convert the back issues to app formats.
It just comes down to greed, lack of vision, and desperation. To think they wanted to actually charge *MORE* for digital versions???!!!
Apple looks like it is making a second round effort to reach out to publishers, in my view basically tossing them a lifeline. If they still sink it will have nothing to do with Apple but their own stupidity.
I do read a lot of naivity in your post.
1) You seem to say that basically the technology to deliver content is more valuable than content in itself (which, you claim, you can simply look up for free). May I doubt that? You can find a lot on the Internet but how much of that content is objective, factual, complete and relevant? As an example, look up the Wikipedia stats. You'd be staggered comparing the A grade articles to the rest.
2) How can you say that all the "perfect" things Apple offers are for free and Apple still wanting a 30% cut in the subscriptions?
3) Why do the publishers have to share their customer base. I'm an Apple customer for my Mac, my 3 iPods, my iPhone and my iPad. I don't see what Apple has to do with me reading Nature, SA, NG, ...
4) Apple seems to say that their technology should be more expensive when information is more expensive. That doesn't strike you as bizarre?
Now, who seems to be greedy?
iTunes on Windows (7 in my case) is beyond atrocious. It's incredibly slow and laggy, crashes very often (the latest version is especially bad for this), and times out when accessing the store about 25% of the time.
Compared to the Zune desktop application, the difference is night and day.
iTunes 64bit on Windows7 64bit seems fine for me. Windows is just rubbish, let's face it. Windows7 is an improvement but even PC games and so on have all sorts of driver and crashing issues.
Yes Apple can improve iTunes. But Windows itself... *sigh*