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In a bid to control the internet, China tries to put the squeeze on mobile news apps
It's like Jeff Goldblum's neurotic, chaos theory spouting character in Jurassic Park said: "life, uh, finds a way." Or, in this case, it's the internet that can't be kept down at heel. According to a Reuters report, the Chinese government's State Internet Information Office has instituted a "crackdown" on rogue mobile news apps that purportedly transmit images of pornography and other "obscene information" to children. But what's more likely, however, is that the apps in question serve as a workaround for citizens seeking news reports from established foreign media outlets; news that would otherwise be censored. The move could see any offending app makers, which includes popular apps like Zaker and Chouti, effectively shut down if they fail to fall in line and sanitize their content. China's long had a history of strangling internet access, but this development, coupled with recent news of censorship as usual for its Shanghai free trade zone, highlights just how difficult it is for the state to control the web. And with new social networks cropping up every day and promising novel means of spreading illegal information, that fight's fast becoming a losing battle.
Is The Daily on thin ice?
The Daily, the heavily-promoted news publication for mobile devices, may be on life support, according to a report in today's New York Observer. I took a look at The Daily a few months after launch and found it pleasing to look at but not something I would spend money on. There are solid free news offerings from places like Slate, and aggregators like Flipboard and Zite which have a lot more content and can learn my interests over time. The Daily launched in early 2011 as an iPad-only publication, later adding an iPhone edition and one for the Samsung Galaxy Tab. A large staff was brought in to do original reporting, but there are persistent reports that the enterprise is losing about $30 million per year. In February we learned that The Daily had 100,000 paid subscribers. The Observer reports today, based on internal sources, that The Daily has been put 'on watch', and whether it survives will be determined after the November elections. Reviews in the app store are pretty lukewarm, with a lot of complaints about the number of ads in a publication that people have to pay for. Subscriptions are $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year. There is a free version of the app with a selection of a few stories from the full edition. The Daily was a bold experiment, but it may not be a compelling enough offering to sustain itself. Update: The Editor of The Daily, Jesse Angelo, in a carefully worded denial, responded to the stories about the online newspapers reported problems. You can read his response here.
New York Times updates iPad app to stop constant crashing
It's about time. Ever since the NYTimes for iPad app replaced the lame Editors' Choice app, it has been tough sledding trying to read the news. It often took a long time to load, and then before displaying a single story, it crashed. I reinstalled the app, and that made things better for a while until the crashes returned. I wasn't the only one having trouble. The app store reviews of the previous version were brutal. The app was updated over the holidays, and I'm happy to report it is far more stable. I can actually read the news without having to constantly relaunch the app. The only downside I experienced was I had to log in again. If I had been commuting or on a trip and didn't have that info it would have been a pain. The New York Times app is free, but in early 2011 it will require a subscription. The old version wasn't worth $0.02, so I'm glad to see the app back on track. If you dumped the app in disgust, it's worth another look now, even though it is not perfect. In particular, the navigation bar at the bottom covers up some text unless you dismiss it. If you don't register for a free account, the app will constantly nag you. Ironically, the iPhone app from the Times works great. The developers writing the iPad app should take the iPhone team to lunch and get a bit of advice.
Washington Post for iPad is a bit hard on the eyes
I've been using the Washington Post for iPad app since it was released earlier this week. It's nice to see the Post jump into the dedicated iPad app competition, but while there are some things to like about the app, there is also a lot I find extremely disappointing. The good first. Most, but not all of the Post is here. The reporters, bloggers, and columnists are in full force. The app content updates frequently, and there is an excellent multimedia section with both images and video. The Post has embraced social media, and you can see what people on Twitter and Facebook are saying about the big stories. When you bring up a story, you can also see stories from other media, like NPR and the Christian Science Monitor. That's a good idea, and lets you see a range of coverage on a subject. The Post calls this Live Topic and it's a clever innovation. Now, ahem, on to the bad. This app has the ugliest, most confusing layout I have ever seen. The screens are very busy. Nothing is intuitive, and there is no help or video explaining how to navigate. The designers of this app appear to have decided to invent their own GUI, throwing away just about every convention ever invented to make navigation easy. It's impossible to read a story full screen without other elements intruding, either ads or Twitter feeds or who knows what. Comments about this design on the app store are overwhelmingly negative. %Gallery-107137%
AP News for iPad a missed opportunity
Having made most of my living in the news business, I'm pretty much a news junkie. As a result, I've loaded my iPad up with a lot of news applications so I can keep up throughout the day. I'd taken some pretty strong issue with the failings of the AP News app for the iPhone, but the iPad version hits a new low in design and function. Let's start at the beginning. When you launch the app, you are presented with a screen that has little strips of news on what appears to be a cloth background. Each strip is a story. You can get about six of these strips on the iPad screen. That's pretty silly, since the screen is so large and the strips are so small. You would think the people that designed this app would use the extra space for more content, but that isn't the case. The home screen also has a large window which is a gateway to AP photos, and another window that leads you to video. More about those later. %Gallery-92052%
