A cup of coffee and a newspaper looks set to be usurped by a latte and an iPad as the media of choice for Australia’s cafe set with the launch of the iPad on Friday.
Tens of thousands of the devices could be sold in the first year.
Where once magazines and papers ruled, research from Australia and overseas suggests iPads will quickly become a common sight in cafes that run Wi-Fi hotspots.
The opening paragraphs from a story in The Australian yesterday. In Cafe circuit braces for impact of Apple’s iPad, the newspaper touts the new device and the potential impact on reading habits. This story is one of many by the newspaper over the last couple of months talking up the iPad. They will be, after all, the first newspaper in Australia with an iPad app – just $4.99 a month.
iPad pre-sales, have been, I am told, well above expectations. That said, there is little in the way of local content to be available from launch this Friday. This is a surprise.
The iPad is an opportunity for publishers to innovate. Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, we are not seeing much of that at the moment.
Newsagents need to be engaged in conversations about the iPad and other disruptive products coming down the line. They will succeed, opening a new channel and attracting plenty of existing print customers.
We will not be buying an IPad just yet as I am aware of other similar products entering the market place with possibly better accessability.
As an example the Kindle by Amazon.com for reading is better by far than anything Apple put out.
It is half the price,no charge world wide for Internet download, stores 1500 books, the purchase of which are 66% off the cost of hard copy,has limited Internet access and has an email address.
You can upload / download PDF files from your PC and the book size version fits in your brief case / hand bag easily.
We have one and it serves the purpose it was bought for.
The fonts can be changed and the ability to read is similar to hard copy books now. The technology is known as E Ink and cannot be faded or smudged with a hand.
Have a think about it. We bought it off Amazon.com as it is not available in retail stroes in Australia.
A procative newsagent,
Yes you’re right, the Kindle theoretically has better technical specs. But you’re forgetting that consumerism doesn’t work by logic.
No one betters the way Apple present their products to the masses. The masses is what counts.
Despite the fact you’re technically correct, you’re just going to miss the boat by adopting a minority attitude.
When you buy technology these days in my view its best to buy on a needs basis and not beacuse the masses say “let’s buy”
The I Pad is a mass market campaign which I know is being looked at closely by Sony and Samsung who are to release there versions soon. Look at the I Phone- there are lots of similar models out ther that have variances in them that I phone do not have. HTC are an example of more up to date technology than I Phone.
It’s a case of horses for courses and what suits the buyer.
When customers walk in to my shop they have three or four main newsapapers to choose from.
When customers boot up their iPad, they will have two, three hundred, maybe a thousand newspapers to choose from?
Do the Australian really want to move their customers into the electronic domain? Good luck clinching the sale…
“iPad pre-sales, have been, I am told, well above expectations.” Mark when quoting someone else please keep their spin out of it, it’s so ruddish.
eddy I am not quating anyone, just passing on what I have learned from my own process in the queue to get an iPad.
Eddy get your head out of the sand. Who cares what is quoted look at the facts. $4.95 for a month subscription to the Australian. It won’t be long before other follow suit. The potential advertising dollars these guys can get will be huge. Sorry i am quoting ‘everybody’ here. We as newsagents need to wake up.
I honestly thought that we would have 5-10 years before this technology would hurt us. I now firmly beleive that we have 2 years. Look at the introduction and speed of take up for the i-phone and other such devices. 5 years ago we got exciting when you could change a ring tone on a phone, msn live was a novel way to chat and downloading music to cd’s off pirate sites was a way to select the music you wanted.
Forget any spin, or sales pitches. People’s opinion on i-pad is split but a story on the abc radio yesterday had a publisher from one of the largest publishers in the States saying, that there problem now isn’t ‘if’ i-pad, amazon kindel hurt book sales but how to control them in pricing and distribution.
Our industry partners are doing the same behind closed doors and we are out of the mix. The question’s are really, how can we enter into this new market?, where do our customers fit that will never buy a reader?, Can we get some additional support from publishers ie if they go live with Women weekly can we get exclusive additions that will enbale us to get sales.
People will always want the tactile feel of paper and some will feel socially awkward reading a reader on a train or bus but we do need get our head around this and similar devices.