Over the last ten years, I have been an active consumer of online news media. This has cost me nothing, simply because the online news outlets I read are financed by ads. According to Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, this trend must change if news media are to survive. While I think that his approach – simply shutting people who don’t pay out – isn’t the way to endear himself to the consumers, I do think that he has a point.
Until recently, I had a subscription for the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. About four months ago, I cancelled it, because I never read it anyway, mostly because I already knew most of what it said already, having read several online newspapers at home, at work and in transit. Will I ever take up a subscription to Aftenposten again? Maybe. But not for the paper version. Instead, I will gladly take up a subscription to their tablet app.
I say tablet app, instead of iPad, because I am in no way certain that I’ll still be using an iPad ten years down the line, but I most certainly will still be using a tablet of some kind. The first attempt at creating a good app for news consumption from a single source on the iPad comes from Wired magazine. Their app is free – as it should be. Instead, users pay per issue they download.
Let me just say this at once; reading Wired Magazine on the iPad just works. It’s quick, it’s comfortable, and gives me more value than the magazine itself ever did. Another example of an excellent solution is MacLife tablet edition, which also shows off the strengths of the iPad format for magazine consumption.
What makes me think that this would work for newspapers? I can only speak for myself. However, I know that I only really read a very small number of newspapers, most of which more or less conform to my political views. I want editorials on subjects that interest me, and I want to have it on the go. Having an app that, every morning, downloads the most recent edition, is just what I need and want. I can bring my pad, and the app, with me on public transport, reading the articles that interest me.
Why do I think that’s how they will save themselves? By offering a two-tiered system, the newspapers reach two markets. The model I’m envisioning is something like this: The first tier only offers headlines and a little detail, with no analysis. This should be free, or ad-funded. The second tier should have detailed articles with editorials and additional content, such as guest writers. I would willingly pay for a subscription to the second tier, which would give me more news, of higher quality.
What would I want from a newspaper app? At the very least, these three criteria should be fulfilled: (more…)
Category: Android
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Survival – how news media should adapt to a challenging present
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Another feature I’d love to see on the iPad
The iPad is great, and iOS is, well, neat. However, there are a few features from Android, that I would love to see on the iPad. Chief among these is widgets.
On my Android phone, I have widgets telling me how much power is left on my phone, the number of days until my wedding, and a photo of my fiancée, to mention a few. Others include widgets to turn on and off various services on the phone, set the sound profile, and turn airplane mode on or off:
On my iPad, the only things that could fall under the header of widgets, are the little numbers on apps like Things, Mail and Newsrack, telling me how many outstanding tasks, and unread emails and blog posts I have:
So having established that I want widgets, what do I want them to do? For one, I’d love to have a widget for toggling airplane mode, a countdown to my wedding day and one to toggle sound and rotation lock.
I’m sure there are other things you guys would want to see; feel free to use the comment field to share them! -
My number one wanted feature on Android
Lately, I have been writing quite a bit about features I’d like to see on my iPad. I do also have an Android phone (my second one, as a matter of fact), and, while it usually does most of what I want, there is one feature which is not built into it – screenshots.
On my iPad, and apparently also on the iPhone, you simply press the home and power buttons, and hey presto, you’ve got a screenshot. On Android phones, you have to either root the phone, or install the SDK, both of which are unsatisfactory solutions to me.
Now, apparently, this will come in Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), but frankly, it should have been a feature since day one. -
BGG apps for Android – a review
Note: I’ve been a BoardGameGeek user for a few years now, but only after I got my first Android phone did I really start using the features the site has to offer, as I got an app that uses its API. These tests have been performed on an HTC Desire, running Android 2.2 (Froyo).
Crossposted to Boardgamegeek.
At the moment, there are two apps for BoardGameGeek available for Android phones. One is called BoardGameGeek, and is developed by Dennis Bond, the other is called BGG Mobile, developed by Skulupus.
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Resetting HTC phones to factory settings
I recently grabbed my second Android phone, a HTC Desire. While I was very pleased with my HTC Magic, the Desire has a few features the Desire does not, and so I decided to spring for it.
I wanted to be able to hand over my old phone to someone else, but didn’t want them to see what I’d had installed and stored on the phone. Luckily, this is very simple to accomplish, as there is a built-in tool made to reset the phone to factory settings. Here’s how to use it:
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Mobile multitasking – Android versus iOS
The two main contenders in the mobile OS world today have two vastly different approaches to multitasking. Both have merits, and potential drawbacks. Let’s have a look:
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Android – Choosing apps
Like the iPhone and its app store, Android offers a market for download and purchase of apps for the Android phones. They’ve cleverly called this market the Android Market. It is directly accessible from the phones, and you can find it on the main menu.
The only problem with the Android Market, as I see it, is that navigating it tends to get tedious. Luckily, there is a website from which you can browse apps and see what rating they’ve got. The first is called Cyrket, and you can find it here. Unfortunately, Cyrket has a spotty record as far as uptime goes. An alternative to Cyrket is Androlib, which can be found here
There are basically speaking two ways of installing apps. The obvious one is using the Android Market to download and install them automagically. You can also get the installable package (Android uses .apk-files for installable packages) and install it directly from the file manager.
To do this, you first need to Allow installation of non-Market apps. In the main view, click the “Menu” button, then click “Settings”. In settings, choose “Applications”, then activate “Unknown sources”. -
STFU && RTFM on mobile devices
After reading this post at NRKBeta (link in Norwegian), I decided to follow suit, and install a theme to help speed up access to my blog from mobile devices. -
A new phone – useful apps
Note: For the next few posts, I will cover my choice of a new mobile phone, what considerations I have made and what applications I am running through it.
As mentioned in my previous post, the Android Market has a plethora of more or less useful apps for Android. Here are the ones I currently use:
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A new phone – Choosing apps
Note: For the next few posts, I will cover my choice of a new mobile phone, what considerations I have made and what applications I am running through it.
Like the iPhone and its app store, Android offers a market for download and purchase of apps for the Android phones. They’ve cleverly called this market the Android Market. It is directly accessible from the phones, and you can find it on the main menu.
The only problem with the Android Market, as I see it, is that navigating it tends to get tedious. Luckily, there is a website from which you can browse apps and see what rating they’ve got. The website is called Cyrket, and you can find it here.
There are basically speaking two ways of installing apps. The obvious one is using the Android Market to download and install them automagically. You can also get the installable package (Android uses .apk-files for installable packages) and install it directly from the file manager.
To do this, you first need to Allow installation of non-Market apps. In the main view, click the “Menu” button, then click “Settings”. In settings, choose “Applications”, then activate “Unknown sources”. -
A new cellphone – Choosing phone
Note: For the next few posts, I will cover my choice of a new mobile phone, what considerations I have made and what applications I am running through it.
As I said in my previous post, I eventually decided on getting a phone that runs Android. The question, then, was which phone to get. Living in Norway, the selection is rather limited, and I was not about to go abroad to get my phone. Hence, the Choice was between HTC’s Magic and Hero, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia and Samsungs I7500.
I tried out all four models, and found that it came down to the two offerings from HTC. I then looked at the specs for the two phones, and really, they’re so closely matched, it all, in the end, came down to design. I can understand why some people might like the “lip” on the Hero, but I didn’t, and so, my choice was the HTC Magic