The WSJ moves its universal iOS app into the Newsstand

The Wall Street Journal, which had maintained a stand-alone app for quite some time, has updated its universal iOS app and moved it into the Apple Newsstand.

The Wall Street Journal now will be using in-app purchases through Apple's system, though at the time of this post, the system doesn't seem to be working as designed – though that may be caused by the app's release coming as a surprise, as often happens. The development team may this bug worked out by later today.

The update will now mean that the WSJ app will download issues automatically for subscribers.

It also means that some users will not read the app description will wonder where their WSJ has gone to – though the publishing team has gone to great lengths to make sure readers know their app is now to be found in the Newsstand.

What's New in Version 5.0
Newsstand & Alerts
• WSJ is now in Newsstand! Get new issues automatically delivered to your device overnight. To use Newsstand, tap 'Allow' when prompted.
• Note: WSJ App icon will now appear in the Newsstand Folder.
• Breaking News Alerts from WSJ. To get alerts, tap 'Allow' when prompted.
In-App Subscriptions
• Purchase a monthly subscription to WSJ through your iTunes account. With a digital subscription you get access to iPad, iPhone, WSJ.com and more.

12 Apps of Christmas: the Tribune Company uses Mag+ to launch tablet edition for its tabloid, Red Eye, in March

The Twelve Days of Christmas runs from Christmas Day to the evening of January 5th, or Twelfth Night. But TNM's 12 Apps of Christmas, which began on Tuesday, looks back at significant media apps released this year. Today we look at March, continuing the series through New Year's Eve.

March means a new iPad, or at least it does now-a-days. Back in 2010, when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad, the launch took place at the beginning of April. In 2012, Apple had reduced the time between unveiling and launch so that the introduction of "the new iPad" took place on March 7, with pre-orders accepted that very same day, and delivery to take place on March 16.

The "new iPad" brought us the retina display, the concept of which Apple had introduced with the iPhone 4, and the tablet proved to be a major success.

In March Sporting News moved its tablet app into Apple's Newsstand, where it resides today. But later in the year the publication was forced to announce that it would end its print publication after 126 years.

Along those same lines, it is interesting to note that Nomad Editions in March issued major updates to its three digital magazines, changing platforms for their creation. Originally designed using Treesaver, Nomad Editions began using the Mag+ platform with this March update.

A tablet edition launched in March from the Tribune Company for its city tabloid RedEye also used the Mag+ platform. The digital edition was priced at $1.99 per month, and though one still doesn't quite know if it will be a success, it was an important launch nonetheless because it set up later launches for the company such as its Chicago Bears digital magazine.

The significance of the digital edition of RedEye is that the publication is produced Monday through Friday and so, along with the now defunct The Daily, was one of the few attempts at daily tablet publishing in a native, non-RSS driven way. Yes, RedEye has a print equivalent that drives the content and much of the design, but the digital iPad edition launched in March remains one of the few efforts at native tablet publication design produced on a daily basis.

IDG UK gives its Macworld readers coal in their stockings

The publishing team at IDG UK updated their app today for the UK edition of Macworld and readers of the tech publication have to be wondering if they should consider dropping their subscriptions. The app remains an odd looking replica edition with missized pages, microscopic text and editorial layouts with so much white space the tablet edition will work very well in an emergency as a flashlight app.

Since the launch of TNM I've railed against the use of replica editions by magazine publishers. My objections have always been that replicas are hard to read and an insult to readers who expect that the editors of their favorite magazines will care enough about their craft to learn the new digital platforms and adapt their products for the best reading experience possible – not simply take the cheap and easy way out.

There are places for replicas – archives, for instance, as well as some small publications that are already tablet size – but as a digital magazine the replica is pretty much a fail.

It is particularly annoying in two areas: the magazine trade journal where the assumption is that the editors and writers have experience in the publishing industry and would never consider writing about mobile and tablets without first hand experience; and tech publications where readers expect that the editors of the publications actually like their industries.

The sad fact is that at a lot of big magazine company editors and writers are moved from publication to publication, often editing more than one different industry topic. Today you are the authority on personal computing, tomorrow you know everything there is to know about bird watching. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating – but insiders know I'm only exaggerating a little.

I would assume that the editors at Macworld UK are registered Apple developers, that they have opened up Xcode and actually played with it, that they use Macs to edit the magazine, and that when they write about iBooks Author they do so only after downloading and installing the software themselves. OK, assuming all that, why wouldn't they build their digital edition themselves using the tools they are familiar with. Why, in other words, would they let MagazineCloner do their app?
The problems with this particular replica edition are made worse by the fact that outside the U.S. the typical magazine is sized slightly taller. The iPad is already known for its squarish shape, so almost all magazines find that it is a bit of a mismatch. But European magazines trying to squeeze in their pages onto the tablet's display find that there is a lot of space wasted.

So with Macworld UK the replica cover does not even fit the screen, starting things off pretty badly. In landscape, of course, things get even worse. One would think that things would be better on the iPhone 5 – but, alas, the app does not support offer iPhone 5 support so the shrunken print page is reduced in size even more.

One could rant on about the choices some major magazine companies make, but I think it best to end this post with this one thought: when publishers complain about the App Store, or digital newsstands, or declining circulation and advertising, maybe it is time to wonder whether those at fault are not the tech companies or the ad agencies or their readers, but the publishers who fail to present their products in the best possible light, who take the easy way out, who say "yes" to vendors that promise them "cheap and easy" rather than "state-of-the-art".

Morning Brief: Apple notifies developers of holiday shutdown period; the marketers addiction to email

Apple this morning is sending out emails to developers to warn them of the upcoming holiday shutdown period which starts tomorrow and extends to next Friday, December 28.

The shutdown effects iTunes Connect and will effect app releases and any changes a developer makes to pricing through the developer site.

"We strongly recommend that you do not schedule any pricing changes in iTunes Connect that would take effect between Friday, December 21, 2012 and Friday, December 28, 2012," the email told developers. "Pricing changes scheduled to take effect during this date range will not be reflected on the App Store and your app or In-App Purchase will become unavailable for purchase until after the shutdown."

Not surprisingly, there were an awful lot of app updates released this morning, though only a handful to media apps.

Camera+, a useful iPhone camera app that has been inside the App Store for quite a while now, got another update, while also giving its users a Christmas greeting at the same time.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the App Store,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a Spore.
Some crash bugs were fixed with the greatest of care,
So that you, our beloved Camera+ user, could take photos with flair!
We’ll never do shady things with your shared pics because it just isn’t right.
And on that note… Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

If you don't own this useful app and you take lots of pictures with your iPhone Camera+ might be worth downloading as it is currently priced at only $0.99.

Christmas is becoming much like the election season, where the weary citizen is anxious for an end.

My email inbox is in desperate need of cleaning out thanks to companies that do not know how to effectively use email. FTD today, for instance, sent me a dozen emails as if spamming to this extent would produce the desired results. It, instead, has convinced me never to use their services.

The email promotion has become what the fax promotion became a decade ago: the marketing choice born out of desperation where markets know that they will experience diminishing returns, but are too addicted to the tactic to give up on it.

Australian roots music magazine Rhythms launches a tablet edition into the Apple Newsstand

The great promise of the Apple Newsstand, or any digital newsstand that is open to any publisher, is that the reader can find new titles of interest, magazines that the reader never even knew existed. That is the shame of the new Apple App Store redesign, it is shutting off U.S. readers from the rest of the world by making it harder to find new titles.

So off to the Canadian Apple App Store I went to search for new Newsstand publications and there is where I found Rhythms magazine, the tablet edition for the Australian roots music magazine. By copying the Canadian App Store link and simply changing the "ca" to "us" I was able to download this new digital magazine.

The digital version of Rhythms appears to be a hybrid app: full page ads taken from the print edition, combined with new, reformatted editorial pages. The tablet platform allows for the editors to insert music clips into the reviews and animate the cover, complete with an audio clip.

Rhythms Magazine is an Australian based but globally focused monthly roots music magazine that has been established for twenty years. The Rhythms app is a bespoke extension of the print magazine, covering Americana, blues, country music, folk music, soul, world music and jazz news, reviews and in depth features. – app description

The hybrid approach works great, though I did find the navigation a bit of a problem. Any tapping of the left or right side of the page moves you forward or backward. This is fine except when there are music clips and you want to pause the music. A tap of the player and off you go to the next page!

The latest issue available, December, is free of charge to access. Two others issues can also be found inside the app.

Single issues will cost $4.99 (or $5.49 AUD, £2.99 or 4.49€). Annual subscriptions are available as well priced at $47.99 ($49.99 AUD, £34.49 or 42.99€). Those subscription prices represent only a modest discount over the print subscription prices, though obvious international readers would probably be new digital readers.

Here is a brief walk-through the beginning of the December issue which should give you a good idea of what you'll find inside:

12 Apps of Christmas: February was all about politics

The Twelve Days of Christmas runs from Christmas Day to the evening of January 5th, or Twelfth Night. But TNM's 12 Apps of Christmas, which began yesterday, looks at significant media apps released this year – one per month. We look at February today, continuing the series through New Year's Eve.

Posts written in February were all about politics, all the time. No wonder web traffic was not what it should have been! But that is the freedom one has when you are publishing your own website – you write what interests you and no one, other than Google Analytics, is there to suggest that it is time to stop.

The news was dominated by the Greek euro crisis and the presidential primaries. With new elections coming up in April, Greek political parties were jockeying for position. But the election proved indecisive and new elections eventually took place in June.

In the U.S., the primaries were heating up, with Super Tuesday in 2012 falling into early March. But politics was all that seemed to concern the country. While there were a few interesting new tablet editions launched in February, such as Smithsonian Magazine, it was the app was released late in the month by the Washington Post that proved the most important.

First written about here, the WaPo's tablet edition seemed at first like a weak response to the mobile app NYTimes Election 2012 released in December. That passed its first test in January with its use during the Iowa Caucuses.

WP Politics, then, seemed like an afterthought. But since its original release, the team at the Post has done an excellent job updating the app, adding new features on a regular basis.

A well-timed update in October got the app ready for election day, but it was the update in December that signaled that the app may have legs and survive the end of the election cycle.

The weakness of the app is the fact that the WaPo has no current paid content strategy. With the NYT, the app fell into its digital bag of products. To gain full access to the app's features on needed to be a digital subscriber.

The WaPo, on the other hand, did not, and still does not have a metered paywall for its website. The launch of WP Politics was a golden opportunity to test out a paid digital content strategy.

It would have been interesting, in retrospect, if the WaPo kept its website open – like The Guardian – but tested out a paid approach with WP Politics. But now that the election season is over one would assume that the app will stay open to readers at least until the paper rolls out its expected metered paywall some time in 2013.