Apple: News service, background downloads next on the line for the Apple iPad
It was still unclear till Friday regarding the theories on news service for Apple’s iPad. The unveiled details indicate that newspaper paper service is similar to the existing iBooks but has no association with iBooks and the service has no similarity with the App Store. As reported by Bloomberg, Apple is in talk with four famous publishing houses viz. Conde Nast, Hearst, News Corp. and Time Warner.
The new service will also include background downloads of the latest issues which was asked by many since its launch because Amazon’s Kindle has the capability to collect periodical issues automatically, but in case of iPad, manual download of the issues is the only option.
When iBook was brought into public view, it is available only with ePub format which is very plain and simple. So, Apple is now following Adobe’s way by developing tools that are well ahead in visually high-end publications with videos and other necessary features. Some of the bloggers have also speculated that Apple has relaxed policies on allowing third party iOS tools, to make sure their developers get the optimum exposure to various situations where Adobe reigns supreme – like digital magazine creating tools which comes with Adobe’s latest Creative Suite 5 package.
The tablet market is now wide open for business. The manufacturers are suggesting that the market needs other forms of tablet rather than just the iPad, but at the same time complaining that they are finding it difficult to create support base for Apple and Android to name a few, because of less man power and unavailability of adequate resources.
The news service and background downloads are the features through which they are expected to try to woo their existing customers and at the same time for those who want to buy an iPad. The negotiations on dividing the revenue and other price related matters between Apple and the publishers are still not over, but Apple always demands 30 percent share on everything that sails through its store. The print media and the digital media have their own set of pricing, but when it comes to iPad, it will cost the users more than the paper if they subscribe for a year’s subscription.
The rumor mills also indicated that Apple will provide the news service for magazines and newspapers as opted by the subscribers. They are also concentrating on various demographics so that they can provide contents and as well as ads are very decisive. But Apple’s privacy policies keep publishers without any information.
There is still two months time to launch, but chances are that the launch may happen during Apple’s next iPad release which is expected in early 2011, to bring about the hard work that they have put into this.