So many journalists recently wrote about iPad from Apple. But one aspect I haven't seen covered so far: a monopoly status of a market player is nice from a ROI (Return On Investment) point of view but not for the consumer. Why? - Let's have a look at the current situation. Publishers and Apple are still in a negotiation process which has not been finalized so far. Apple would not like to share customer data and of course they try to get as much revenue share as possible. Why not? As long as the iPad would be the only option in a market and publishers are under high pressure to deliver results Apple has an advantage.
But it is and was only a question of time (-to-market): it's curious to see how long it would take Apple's competitors to react. And no doubt it is necessary that more players enter the device market (iPhone & iPad) to offer alternatives. iPhone Apps are not the only answer to enrich the mobile experience and to make it more convenient. But Apple prevents technologies like Flash Light to run on their devices. And of course they will take appropriate measures to extend the timeline until HTML5 will be supported by Safari, the pre-installed browser on iPhones.
Two recent developments will have impact on how we will consume news tomorrow: HTML5 is rich of features, which will make additional software extensions like Flash replaceable. And the second technology with impact will be Adobe AIR.
What's Adobe AIR?
In short: it is a way to "use proven web technologies to build rich Internet applications that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems". Adobe AIR needs a software installation on your Mac or PC. But let's have a look at a real world case: Adobe and Condé Naste demo WIRED on Adobe Air shows that also Adobe would like to play an important role in the future of news. But watch it on your own:
Although the video is an impressive showcase of how a magazine like WIRED can make use of Adobe Air, still some questions were not answered: How long did it take to produce the WIRED demo? At what costs would it be possible to produce an edition on a regular base?
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