Apple Inc is an American Multinational Corporation that deals with the development, design and marketing of computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers. It is best known for selling hardware products like the iPhone, iPod, iPad and the Macintosh computers. Although the company was called Apple Computers for its initial 30 years, the word ‘Computers’ was removed from the name as it started to move beyond the computer market into the consumer electronics market.
The iPad is a tablet computer that has been developed and designed by Apple. It is considered a platform for visual and audio media such as movies, periodicals, books, games, music and web content. There are several applications associated with the user friendly device including Mail, Safari, Photos, Youtube, maps, Calendar, Notes and Contacts. It is not designed to replace a mobile phone yet the user can use the built in speaker and microphone or a wired headset to place calls over 3G or WiFi.
When Apple had released the iPad, it ended up being the content delivering device, with content being exploded through it from every direction in the world. Its content ranges from that of newspapers and magazines to that of television networks. Now when it comes to newspaper subscriptions and the iPad, Apple may once again have a few more tricks up its sleeve. Industry sources believe that Apple is coming up with a new subscription plan for newspapers, according to an article by the San Jose Mercury News. As media companies have begun to struggle with advertising revenue and low print circulation, it is being hoped that tablets like the iPad would provide a new source for earning and maximization of profits. The sources told the newspaper that Apple is also expected to be ready to take a 30% cut in subscription profits and up to 40% of advertising revenue from the digital newspaper content. It was also reported that Apple and major newspaper publishers had agreed upon an ‘opt-in’ option for subscribers. Here user information would be allowed to be passed on to the publishers for generating advertising commitments. It was mentioned in the article that publishers were not happy with Apple’s terms despite the latter being offered a fee rather than the cutting of subscription and advertising revenue. The publishers had hoped to offer app editions which included the print versions of the paper. Instead of that, they should have chosen Apple as an intermediary with subscribers. Apple was requested for a comment but there was no response.
There have been several newspaper publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that have been able to generate subscription based content for the iPad. However most of the other publications are yet to see the iPad being able to access their publications as there have been continuous negotiations over how the subscriptions will be handled. It would be interesting to see how the Apple’s plans would work.
