I was really looking forward to this event because I felt that it would give us a glimpse at the future of the journalism industry. Although it was not what I expected, I felt it gave some really good insight into the growing Apple industry and how their various products apply to different parts of the journalism and media industry.
The panel discussed how apps for news outlets are considered “on” apps, due to their ever-changing, interactive nature. For things like this, the panel explained, the iPhone would be more beneficial because of its convenience and ability to be updated quickly. “Off” apps are things like magazines viewed on the iPad. This is because of it’s simple nature with few links and little ability to be interactive. The whole idea of the magazine apps for the iPad is to give reader the convenience of their favorite magazine without having to carry around an extra 300 pages, not necessarily to make it more interactive.
I personally think that if a magazine is going to have an app for it’s subscribers via the iPad, they should take advantage of the technology and make it more engaging. Maybe they could embed a video in the article or have moving pictures to illustrate a story. Or even simple things like questionnaires. They could also offer special videos or games to just to subscribers who use the iPad app. I feel in this day and age, innovation can make or break you and I feel like as much innovation a publication can use, the more methods it has for getting its content out to it’s readers.
