Amazing how a short note on Hotviews can turn you into a world authority. On 25th Feb I wrote How not to launch an iPad App at my exasperation as a long-term subscriber to the Times iPad app had turned into annoyance as its new version was basically unusable on my iPad1. I was not alone. Over 2000 wrote comments on the iTunes App Store – most of them unprintable. My inbox and Twitter feed was full too. Interestingly, my comments were reproduced in the media around the world. Obviously I was then an expert on the subject and I’ve had CTOs from many other journals asking for my views on how they port their print versions to the iPad and, in particular, what they do with support for the iPad1 when Apple launch a new OS and implement their long term policy of not supporting OS versions ‘two generations back’. Ie the iPad1. As we all know this is a devious Apple ploy to get you to buy a new device which normally works
Anyway, this week the Times finally launched an upgraded iPad App. It now actually works on my iPad1 although it is still a bit jerky and sometimes freezes. But at least I can read it on the train again. It still doesn’t download editions automatically – a key feature of the new version. But that seems to be down to Newsstand which is Apple’s responsibility.
Of course, this has all done damage to The Times and possibly even to newspapers’ iPad apps in general. One of the reasons why I wasn’t tearing my hair out is that I could still read the web version on my iPad. Indeed, I read every other newspaper in that manner too. There is an interesting article on the HTML5 v Apps debate in Business Insider today. One of the reasons why we have resisted building a TechMarketView App (other than the high cost and that not a single subscriber has asked for it!)