The Apple Tablet and How it Will Rebirth Publishing

Prior to delving into this post, ask yourself if you’re interested in:

1. Apple
2. Touch Computing
3. Magazines
4. Books
5. Newspapers
6. Spending Money.

If you answered yes to any of those, keep reading, I assure you it’ll be worth your while. That said we’re going to get into the nitty gritty of just how Apple will yet again, revolutionize an industry, and this time it’ll be publishing. So let me start you off with a brief history and run-through of relevant information to get you up to speed.

In 2007, Amazon went public with their first-ever hardware offering, the Kindle. Amazon’s baby was a success in it’s own right, it opened doors for publishers and writers alike while giving the electronic book market a well-needed swift kick in the ass. After just 5 hours of being available through Amazon, the device sold out, and remained sold out for 5 months. Needless to say, consumers were; and are still, chomping at the bit for justification of not buying actual physically printed media anymore and going digital. Don’t believe me? Check out the numbers of electronic book sales since the Kindle’s debut in 2007.

Positive Kindle back-patting notwithstanding, one could say a Kindle is to reading books as Kanye is to Jack-Assery, it’s soul cause. Now a Kindle to read magazines and newspapers? Lets be honest, if there’s one thing the Kindle doesn’t do well, it’s recreating that tangible feeling of flipping through a crisp, glossy, vibrant magazine and or a well designed newspaper.

So now about that magazine and newspaper industry?  Brace yourself, depressing statistics and facts ahead. Earlier this year, single-copy sales of magazines were down 12.4 percent in the first half of 2009, according to a Monday report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, (the industry body most publishers use to verify their sales claims). Out of the top-25 magazines in circulation today, only one mustered up a gain in single-copy sales in 2009, and it was a mind-bending 1.2 percent (not shown even in top 20). Don’t believe me? Look at the numbers:

Newspaper circulation on the other hand has been falling about 2 percent annually for years; but began to drop faster in 2007 reports, and faster still in the reports issued last spring, which showed declines of 3.6 percent on weekdays and 4.6 percent on Sundays. Also can’t forget to mention that since last fall industry figures indicate more than a 7 percent drop compared to the year prior is indicative things needing change.

Ok Ok, one last downer, I promise. Take a stab at how many tree stumps the magazine industry leaves in its wake per year? How about 35 million? Suck it Fern Gully. Now of the 4.7 billion magazines that are printed with those 35 million trees, the PAPER project estimates that 2.9 billion are never read. Environmentally speaking, the print industry’s path during this blossoming green-era is economically and more importantly environmentally unfeasible.  So ask yourself why do we continue to print something that in 2 months will be completely useless, perhaps not read, then buried in the ground for another 20 years to break down. If you answer that with anything but an I don’t know, you’re kidding yourself.

So then, now what? Are the tried-and-true journalists, magazine publishers, newspaper columnists, and industry professionals all going to be dumped into the proverbial orgy smorgasbord we know as the blogosphere? Nope, but on the day I spot a  journalist verses blogger death match over the last danish at a Starbucks while arguing the semantics of reporting, I’ll be a happy man. Debauched fight-scenes  aside, this is where Apple comes in. This is where publishing gets revived. This is where you, the consumer gets excited.

Well folks, techies, book worms, students, and damn near anyone else who can read; prepare to clutch each other in a giant warm juicy Apple lubricated embrace. If you’ve continued reading this far, I’m impressed. Nonetheless, for brevity’s sake lets keep it simple and wrap up the important parts: The Tablet, The Distribution System, The Revolution.

For those visual people out there, who somehow made it here without reading any of the aforementioned, consider the following:

Now, to the people asking, what, where, and how would a tablet be useful to me? Here’s your answer. Take note, this tablet will not replace your laptop, it will not replace your phone, it will not replace your desktop, but what it will do is become a new addition to your tech collection. One of which you can accessorize, flaunt, and keep with you on the go. A tablet that will allow you to read publications, purchase magazine subscriptions, buy books, get your local newspapers, and maybe even get the newspaper from your Great Grandma’s hometown in Hungary, all in one place. And the best part? It’ll all be interactive, smooth, crisp, vibrant, and goddamn sexy.

The Breakdown

1. The Tablet

Not much surprise here, I’m no insider, or a veritable industry expert, but it’s safe to assume a few things. Apple will pull the rabbit out of the hat with stellar battery life coincided with a gorgeous display. It’ll be slim, sexy, and something similar to one of the million mock-ups available online.

2. The Distribution System

Oh man, Oh man. Brace yourself. I’m going out on a real, long, slim, brittle limb here but here goes. So with the release of the iPhone came a giant revenue making monster affectionately known as the App Store. Which then was followed by the inauguration of the iPhone SDK which allowed a new-wave of software development to sweep the nation. There were glorious times to be had; boob-shaking apps, fart machines, GPS navigation, countless games, and damn near anything else you can think of. So continue that train of thought, distribution platform, Apple proprietary SDK, and now add a famished publishing market.

Are you imagining a grungy homeless journalist writing short stories as a skill to earn change? Good, so now imagine an entirely new iTunes “platform”,  one that would enable orthodox publishers to push their respective content (books, newspapers, magazines) in an interactive manner. Albeit books in the traditional sense won’t see much change, but magazines and newspapers on the other hand, hot secks is what we like to call it on the Internets. Don’t get what I’m saying?

So in short, you get your favorite: magazines, books, newspapers, school books, and anything else that once was printed, available to you for whatever fee gets applied to it. Fees likely will be per year, per month, per edition, per use, or per whatever the respective publisher deems appropriate.

3. The Interface

Don’t get what I mean when I say interactive magazine content? Have a look at an avant garde publishing platform known as

CerosMedia.

The included link is to one of many interactive magazines hosted and published on the Ceros Platform. Toy around with it for a couple minutes, and come back, then I promise I’m almost done. Now imagine that presentation, but on a tablet with actual touch interactivity. Interactive elements within pages, fluid page strokes.

Publishers will be able to narrow advertisements based on your interests, past reads, and so on and so forth. Subscribe to GQ but don’t like Soccer? If one available cover story is on Kid CuDi and the other is a David Beckham feature, you see CuDi feature. Think of the Genius feature with music, but with advertisements that are pertinent to your interests. Also, while on the topic of advertising, imagine purchasing a years worth of digital editions of your favorite syndication but instead of seeing stale ads, you see relevant, new ads besides old stories. Just food for thought.

OK, I’m done. Jesus H Google, I don’t think I’ll ever post a story this long again, but if you made it this far, I love you. Really, it’s one of those weird, I’m going to add you on Facebook but not talk to you type of relationships, but believe me, it’s there. Well it would be if I hadn’t deleted Facebook, but that’s a whole new story within itself. So with all of that said, I bid you a deux. Pay attention to Apple and the publishing industry this year, because as Sam Cooke said, A Change Is Coming

Related Posts

1. Apple Tablet, March or April? Wallets Open.
2. Apple Unveils the iPad : Our Comprehensive Look
3. Wired Demos Beautiful iPad Tablet App
4. The Future of Magazines
5. NYTimes Editor Cites Impending “Apple Slate”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 10:33 am and is filed under Features and tagged with Apple, Digital Publishing, EBooks, Everything, Kindle, Magazines, Newspaper, Reading, Tablet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.