IOS 5 Impact on Apps & Media
At Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, Apple announced iOS 5 to be released this fall for iPhone and iPad. Several 3rd party application developers and media companies will be impacted by these new features.
We created a short video for fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwyfR31Kdmo Enjoy! @onetomany & @izzygregorio
Newsstand is described as a "new place on the App Store just for newspaper and magazine subscriptions."
Actions speak louder than words: By including and activating Safari reader by default, Apple is stating to the newspaper & magazine publishers:
Ads are not welcome on the web browser on our devices. As the provider of the hardware and software, we control the entire platform. We believe these ads are a deteriment to the user experience. If you wish to serve ads, please do so through an application.
With this in mind, we have created the Newsstand. While many of your users will still access the content via Safari, they may opt not see ads and your branding and design will be significantly altered, if not removed altogether. We recommend that you direct users to your app.
While developing and building for the leading platform may reduce costs, the newsmedia should support and encourage competition among Apple, Google Android, Blackberry, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and HP WebOS.
As tablet page views represent a rather small percentage of the overall market, this is not an immediate threat. The push for an app-dominated news media in a market moving toward social discovery will not lead us to maximize revenue from our online.
In a world controlled by Apple, news and magazines and other information providers will eventually lose. Apple's goal is to sell more hardware, on which they make hefty margins.