I began my exploration of the iPad Saturday with a simple question: how does my experience of The New York Times on this device differ from the ways I experience the Times already in paper, on the Web, on Times Reader and on the Kindle. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
Because of its early involvement with Apple in developing a customized application for the iPad, the Times seemed like a reasonable stand-in for the world of news in gauging the device’s potential as a journalism interface. The Times was also front and center, on stage, when Apple unveiled the device in January.
My verdict: Useful, interesting, enjoyable — but not something I’d pay for.
That may be fine, of course, since nothing is exactly what the Times is charging for the Editors’ Choice iPad app. The paper has indicated it will offer a more enhanced app that it will charge for, but has not released details.
Finding the free app in the App Store was tougher than expected. Hardly surprising that Apple positions video, music, games and books ahead of news in the store. But once I found the news section, with a little help from Poynter Online director Julie Moos, we couldn’t find the Times app.
“Search for nytimes,” managing editor Steve Myers told us. We tried that and pulled up several Times apps, all of them for the iPhone as opposed to the iPad.
Then somebody — there was a lot of talking at once in the conference room at Poynter this morning — said, “Look for NYT Editors’ Choice.” That worked.
Who knew it would take a village — and several minutes — to experience the Times on the iPad?
The Editors’ Choice app serves as a kind of junior Times Reader, a static collection of stories, but much less fully featured than Times Reader. The headline collection moves nicely across the page with a finger swipe, but there’s not much more of special relevance to the iPad interface.
Editors’ Choice provided 11 stories to choose from this morning, and the capacity to e-mail them. Clicking on E-mail This Article will get you nothing until you’ve enabled e-mail; then, the feature works like a charm.
Viewing the Times via the iPad’s Safari browser is fine, with some limitations, especially video. Most news organizations rely on Flash players to display video, an interface the iPad does not support.
Reading the Times via my Times Reader earlier Saturday, I loved Mark Bittman’s Minimalist video chronicling his preparation of lettuce soup (also available at nytimes.com, of course). OK, hardly what you’d expect in assessing video news, but one of the advantages of the serendipitous browsing afforded by Times Reader.
My search for Bittman’s lettuce soup feature on the iPad yielded a dark box with no video.
I avoid the $240 annual charge for Times Reader by virtue of my $770 subscription to the printed edition. Print subscribers don’t get free access to the Times on the Kindle, and I let my subscription to the paper on that device lapse. Nothing from my Saturday reading across platforms suggests I should reverse that decision.
As much as I enjoyed turning pages in the iBooks’ crisp and full-color interface, though, I did not come away from the experience thinking the iPad is quite the Kindle Killer that some reviewers have suggested. I’ve written a separate assessment of my brief experience with books on the two platforms — plus the iPhone — here.
My initial impressions of the apps created by NPR, USA Today and Time magazine Saturday makes me think they’ve figured out ways of using the iPad quite effectively.
I’m thinking especially of USA Today’s photo player — I agree with Poynter’s Regina McCombs, who just pronounced it “fabulous” across the table from me — and NPR’s audio player.
My encounter with iBooks on the iPad suggests I’ll be a much bigger fan of the Times Book Review app (coming soon to the iPad), as much for its market segmentation as for what I expect will be a compelling interface.
My favorite presentation of Saturday’s news? By virtue of both its breadth and depth, the paper edition wins hands down. It was only in print that I spotted the news images and stories that resonated most: an especially disturbing photo of 17-year-old suicide bomber Dzhanet Abdullayeva at the top of Page One and two front page stories: “Vatican Priest Likens Criticism Over Abuse to Anti-Semitism,” and “Need a Cab in New York? Analysis Shows Which Corners are Best.”
