POLYMASH

Can Apps “Save” Content Publishers? Apps have helped bring shuttered magazines like Gourmet back from the dead, and take publications like Wired to the peak of popularity. But can apps “save” all digital publishers from dwindling online CPMs? Are they the magic bullet for getting readers (and advertisers) to pay for content?

Leading publishers and facilitators like Kargo, who have helped publishers like Wenner and Consumer Reports land in the winner’s circle at the SAMMY Awards, shed light on how they’ve monetized their content with both paid apps and appvertising.

Great video from a content publisher’s view on tablet devices.

T3′s iPad edition. Photograph: Future

Future Publishing is to launch a bespoke iPad edition of its gadget magazine T3, buoyed by a sixfold increase in US print sales of the title since the iPad launched in April.

It will be interesting to see how additional tools (presumably HTML5 customizations) will extend the core capabilities of the Woodwing platform.

42diggsdigg After a week of painful teasing, Samsung has come clean about its Galaxy Tab 7-inch Android tablet. We got the nitty gritty specs, along with some quality time with the device, and we like what we’re seeing on both fronts. Follow along after the break as we break it all down, including some hot hot video of the thing in action!

Looking very good, and if a more tablet ready version of Android comes out soon, this could offer the iPad some nice competition.

It’s not exactly official, but should also surprise no one: According to a new study the psychological profile of iPad owners can be summed up as “selfish elites” while have-not critics are “independent geeks.”

Chart courtesy of MyType

Of course the “haves” would probably call the “have nots” “cheap wannabes” to which the “have nots” would retort: “FANBOI!!”

Which is why we should stick to the science.

Consumer research firm MyType conducted the study, in which opinions of 20,000 people were analyzed between March and May. The firm’s conclusion was that iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, “selfish elites.”

They are six times more likely to be “wealthy, well-educated, power-hungry, over-achieving, sophisticated, unkind and non-altruistic 30-50 year olds,” MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck told Wired.com.

With Mac OS X and iOS both sharing a lot of underlying code, and touchscreen interfaces becoming more popular, there is certainly reason to believe that Apple could leverage an iOS-like touchscreen interface for future computers. Patently Apple recently discovered a patent application filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization earlier this year, which reveals that Apple has considered how both desktop and laptop computers could switch from a more traditional desktop UI best suited for use with a keyboard and mouse to a UI geared for touch input. Such machines could use a sort of hybrid between Mac OS X and iOS, switching UI layers for the most appropriate context.

Riddle me this: How do you piss of a UX professional? The answer: Call him a “designer”.

These days, user experience professionals look down on the word “designer” because it implies that their primary role is to paint pretty pixels. UX is more than that, they clarify. Much more!

Just how much? Well, here’s a diagram (that uses pretty pixels) to explain how much more—

Nice overview of how the concept of wireframes is evolving.

I especially liked the part of “functional wireframes”, although I do not believe this concept works: I do not know a client in the world who doesn’t take wireframes too literally, and throwing a “willing suspension of disbelief” requirement into the mix will be a stretch for most clients or even art directors, who respond primarily to visual cues.

I presented a session called “InDesign to iPad” at the InDesignSecrets Print and ePublishing Conference, May 13, and have heard from a number of people that it would be useful to repeat some of this information here. The session was very short and focused on the various methods for putting content on an iPad (content from InDesign, at least). I obviously, cannot repeat the whole session, but here’s the general outline.

Where We Are Today

After talking to a number of colleagues about this topic, and reading everything I can about it, one quote stands out for me… something that Branislav Milic said to me while in Seattle:

“2010 is the year of announcements”

The point is that every company seems to be throwing their hat into the ring, coming out with something new and exciting and hoping that their idea will stick. Many announcements don’t even appear to be turning into real products, but no matter… everyone feels the need to jump out and do something.

That said, Apple did ship the iPad and sold over a million of them in a few weeks. (And estimates indicate that Apple may be selling over 200,000 per week — more iPads than Macs!) That counts for something. So because of this success, many people feel that the iPad is the target to hit — the device on which their content must appear.

Great post from David Blatner, and still true after a few months… The announcements in this space are piling up, the ePub format is NOT the holy grail of eBook publishing, and I predict that smarter app containers are under way that will allow the re purposing of content, as evidenced by yesterdays liquidpubs announcement …