Tablet Newspapers

[MBPro825]

I do not know if other people have suggested this or not, but why don't newspaper companies (New York Times, Chicago Tribune, any sort of newspaper actually) put their newspapers on iTunes. 99 cents an issue or something. They could sell adds. With the expected Apple Tablet coming out more people could potentially participate in that kind of market. eBooks aren't exactly "extremely popular" and almost everyone buys a newspaper at least once and a while. While people get a lot of their news from internet sites I know, it could be a potential market? What are your thoughts.

(P.S. I did not know if this should be put under the computer industry section or not so I decided to put it under the Apple Tablet which seemed most relevant to the thought)

 

[miles01110]

There's already a free NYT app for the iPhone/iPod touch, and those newspapers who do want to charge users (like the WSJ) have done so. NYT is free to read on traditional computers already as well.

I don't see what the advantage of an iTunes version of a newspaper would be over what's available, but apparently a lot of publications are developing subscription-based services for the Tablet. So basically what you are suggesting has been in the works for months, if not years already.

 

[MisterMe]

I do not know if other people have suggested this or not, but why don't newspaper companies (New York Times, Chicago Tribune, any sort of newspaper actually) put their newspapers on iTunes. ...

Only two weeks ago.

 

[t0mat0]

I think Apple's apparent desire to look at improving advertising may be on the back of them moving into the publishing newspaper arena.


Apple's talking with newspaper companies (or rather their parent companies), sports companies (Disney's ESPN), publishers of books etc.

It's just been hush hush. Check out LongBox for example.

Apple's got time to let the newspapers come to them. eBooks aren't popular yet. But that's content, hardware, and software issues.

See the Guardian pay for app on the iPhone - works, and a way to show how they could go. (Offline news access etc).