Apple approves Opera's iPhone browser; approval of Opera Mini helps Apple avoid anti-competitive charge

In a surprise move, Apple approved a competitive browser for the iPhone. The Opera Mini Web browser made its appearance yesterday in iTunes and is already a major hit with app downloaders with several thousand reviews instantly appearing.

The release caught many be surprise as the general feeling was that there was no way Apple would approve a browser that would compete with its own Safari browser -- its basic policy being that apps that duplicate basic Apple provided functions would not be approved. But the exceptions, like Weather apps, for instance, were many -- and besides, browser wars generally do not turn out well for the dominate player, as Microsoft can attest.

Opera was very public at the time it submitted the app for approval, putting the pressure on Apple to approve the browser or face immense criticism.

For iPhone users, the biggest advantage will be felt by those with first generation devices. The Opera browser is reportedly very fast using EDGE, the generally slower data platform. The reviews for the app were very positive prior to the approval, but MacRumors readers are not as thrilled -- some even speculating that Apple approved the browser because it will prove to be no competition at all for Safari.

WePad, iPad, we all will pad eventually, right?

Talk about other tablets entering the market place has been mostly just that -- talk. Both HP's Slate and Microsoft's Courier are theoretically going to be introduced this year, but both companies seem more interested in promoting their tablets rather than actually selling them.

But enter the WePad, the German made tablet that appears to want to be an iPad knock off for the PC crowd. Designed to look almost identical to the iPad, the WePad sports more PC-like specs: a 1.66 GHz Atom processor, a built-in 3 meg web cam, 2 USB ports, and the ability to run Java, Linux, Android apps, and Adobe Air (read: Flash). The WePad can also display full 1080p HD video, and has HDMI out. So, for specs alone, the WePad should have an advantage. That leaves user experience and apps as the differentiator.

The WePad will begin accepting pre-orders on April 27 in Germany, with the 16GB model priced at €449 (about $610), and the 32GB model at €569 -- US prices and pre-order dates have not been announced.

The demo below will probably appeal to those who like Windows over the Mac OS (Mac users will most likely be appalled by the screen clutter and messiness of the desktop). Its real advantage, though, may be in being a universal media reader as the device promises to be able to read the ePub, PDF and other formats. The iPad, on the other hand, can only handle PDFs through third party apps. And then there is Flash . . .

(In case you missed it, Google is also rumored to be entering the tablet market.)

Pew finds that news execs consider mobile applications 'essential', but are pessimistic about the future

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, in association with the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), released a study gaging the mood of news executives in the newspaper and broadcast industries.

Things remain gloomy (time for another conference!).

Broadcast news execs are, by-and-large, a more gloomy bunch than their print counterparts. Sixty-four percent of broadcast news executives believe their profession is headed in the wrong the direction, while their print counterparts are split 49-51, a bare majority thinking things are not all doom and gloom. (A question: do the 36 percent of broadcast news execs that think their profession is on the right track work at Fox News? Or are they simply drunk?)

On the bright side, news executives have been reading their papers because three-quarters of them say "mobile applications are essential or very important".

Pew finds that most, 75 percent, have reservations about the idea of government assistance (they're right), and another 78 percent feel that same way about getting financial assistance from interest groups.


Find the full Pew findings at Journalism.org.

CourseSmart launches iPad app; textbook prices remain very high; students will continue to seek alternatives

CourseSmart was one of the first companies to announce that they would be ready for the tablet era. Back in January the company released a demo video showing how they saw users buying and reading textbooks on tablets. A new iPad app has been released and the user experience is a mixed bag.

College textbooks are one of the great outrages of modern life. Students, who often go into serious debt in order to get their college degrees, are charged ridiculous amounts for textbooks from publishers who hold monopolies on the titles. Publishers can argue (with some justification) about their own costs of publishing and updating these textbooks, but the result is that students spend a lot of time finding ways around incurring the high cost of textbooks. Today, for instance, most colleges give incoming freshmen estimates of between $1500 and $2000 per year.

CourseSmart's iPad is really no app at all, but simply a way into their browser based store. Once the user has signed up, they will find that the eTextbooks are really 180 or 360 day subscriptions to the electronic texts.

Here are two examples of how the pricing compares to both Amazon and publisher-direct:

Biology	Robert Brooker	1st Edition
CourseSmart	$71.50	eTextbook
Amazon	$139.60	Hardbound
McGraw-Hill	$165.00	Hardbound
McGraw-Hill	$90.75	eTextbook

Second example:

Abnormal Psychology	Ann Kring	et. al.
CourseSmart	$75.50	eTextbook
Amazon	$118.00	Hardbound
Amazon	$73.20	Kindle
Wiley	$91.50	eTextbook

Now I have to admit that I have no idea if either of these two examples are textbooks that are widely used. Both books, however, are easily found in a search on CourseSmart, Amazon and online, so I assume they are good test cases.

As I suspected months ago, CourseSmart is not offering major discounts over the prices that the publishers themselves are offering for electronic versions of the textbooks. Further, both books can be downloaded as PDFS through common file sharing outlets as students desperate to save money will do just about anything to lower their education costs.

(The advantage of the Kindle editions would appear that the owner can retain their electronic copy, while on CourseSmart the subscription runs out after 180 or 360 days.)

For students, eTextbooks are probably a good alternative to buying a new hardbound book -- especially in classes outside their major. The real question for many students may be "can I secure a used copy that is below the cost of an eTextbook?"

The iPad experience & publishing: one week and counting

Here are a few thoughts about the iPad and publishing after one week.

The reviews: Almost all the reviews and columns about the iPad have come from the usual suspects -- David Pogue and crew. Frankly, I could care less about the opinion of the tech folk, what I think is important is what do editors, publishers and readers think of the tablet? If the iPad is going to be important to the future of publishing you'd think we'd find more editors and publishers writing about it. Instead, they are treating the iPad like any other tech device and leaving it to their technology writers to deal with.

The killer app: There is no killer app. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone during the MacWorld keynote in January of 2007 he asked the question "what is the killer app?" He answered with the simple answer "making a call". Jobs then went on demonstrate why the iPhone was so much easier to use than other smart phones.

So what is the killer app on the iPad? Of the apps Apple included at launch, only a hand full, the answer is "none". Browsing is nice on the tablet, but it certainly isn't better than my desktop -- especially without Flash. It isn't e-mail or contacts or any of the other standard iPad ware.

No, Apple has left development of the killer app up to . . . the developers -- which makes their moves to antagonize developers all the more puzzling. The killer app, it seems, is some theoretical app still in development -- maybe the Wired app that won't end up making it onto the iPad because it was developed in cooperation with Adobe?

Newspapers and magazines: The New York Times app, it turns out, was a mistake. On Saturday morning I fired up my iPad, launched the Times app and the lead story concerned the Vatican. Missing was anything about the plane crash that wiped out much of the top leadership of the Polish government. I quickly shut down the app and fired up Safari and ended up reading the story on the Times web site. (A few hours later the Times app was updated to show the crash story.) Overall, newspapers are sitting back and waiting -- what else is new. Now that the few newspapers that made launch day have their apps on iTunes it may be a few weeks before other newspapers join them.

In the meantime, newspapers continue to launch iPhone apps, including student papers that like this one for North Carolina Central University, or this one from the independent student paper at UW-Madison. Student journalists don't seem to have difficulty accepting the idea that readers will want their news on a tablet or phone. The Irish Times was among the many publications launching mobile apps for smart phones last week. (Abilene Christian University was one of the few iPad news apps launched last week after April 3rd.)

Thanks to Zinio and Pixel Mags, the magazine industry has been better represented. But the format restrictions of their formats locks limits what a magazine can do, and certainly commoditizes magazines, in general. Popular Science has gotten good press for its magazine app; but Time magazine has gotten a bit of flack for its pricing policy -- though its app was fairly well received. Nonetheless, iPad owners eagerly downloaded all the apps -- after all, they bought this as a reader and were not going to be deterred from reading just because publishers didn't want to deliver the goods.

Books: Very few stand alone book apps appeared from publishers, so iPad users (for now) are forced to use Apple's iBooks app, or Amazon's Kindle app (universally criticized for its poor programming). Nonetheless, Steve Jobs said 600,000 downloads were recorded in iBooks in just the first few days. (It helped that Apple added 30,000 free books at launch, thanks to its partnership with Project Gutenberg.)

Other apps: if Apple didn't provide the iPad with a killer app, and publishers didn't create candidates, other developers were more than willing to step to the plate.

Right now my favorite app is Air Video, an application that allows you to watch videos on the iPad that reside on your computer, whether you are at home or at the airport waiting on a delayed flight. The best $2.99 app, no doubt.

Instapaper Pro is wonderful, of course, and will be especially appreciated by people who can not spend time reading at their desks at work, but who stumble on stories during the day. A quick click on your browser bookmarks the story for viewing on your iPad (or iPhone) later in the day.

If I were a realtor I'd consider the Zillow app essential. The Zillow web site is already pretty vital, but the iPad app is very quick indeed. This one will be even better on a 3G iPad when out in the field, away from WiFi. Why a newspaper company like Gannett didn't snap this company up early on is beyond me. Oh well, who needs a newspaper when looking for real estate, right? This former CAM weeps. (Zillow recently moved into the rental market, as well. You could see that one coming a mile away.)

The future of newspapers? Attending conferences

The American Society of News Editors brought in the equivalent of a rock star to its conference over the week. Google CEO Eric Schmidt did not disappoint, telling the editors that the future looks bright and everything will be alright.

"We understand how fundamental your mission is," Schmidt told the editors. "We have a business model problem. We don't have a news problem, we're all in this together."

Schmidt then went on to tell the editors how to do their business. "We have a business model problem; we don't have a news problem."

Newspaper folk love this kind of stuff: attending conferences where people tell them what to do. I can think of no other industry with so many conferences, so many gurus, so many people willing to listen to other people who have never spent a day writing a lead, selling an ad, or delivering a newspaper.

"What we need to do is probably sweat, but sweat from hard work, figuring it all out," Boston Globe Editor Martin Baron told Politico after the speech. "I think that’s why people are here, and that’s why they invite somebody like Eric Schmidt. If we can learn something, and apply those lessons to the way we do business, then all the better."

So there you have it: sweat is the answer.