Another reason apps might be the future for online news…
BBC iPlayer on the iPad
Morten Eidal:
We decided that the best route to implement our video and audio player was playback using the html5 video tag. This allows us to integrate the native player into our site, where we serve two H.264 flavours, one 1500kbps for the high quality video (default), and a lower 800kbps you can use if you are bandwidth constrained.
In any case, the result is the Beta version you can see right now – we really hope you like it – delivered by a small team of 5 within just 4 weeks and with the generous support of our FM&T colleagues despite being already busy with the UK election, iPlayer V3, and now the World Cup.
And don't forget, soon we will embark on incorporating the iPlayer V3 features for Bigscreen.
But that is chapter two.
Gestures
Lukas Mathis:
Gestures are often not obvious and hard to discover; the user interface doesn’t tell you what you can do with an object. Instead, you have to remember which gestures you can use, the same way you had to remember the commands you could use in a command line interface.
[…]
The gesture is the verb. This works if the gesture is intuitive, but breaks down if there is no «natural» gesture for a verb. And since there is no intuitive, natural way of moving an object by one pixel (or skewing it, or mirroring it), we have to learn that command, and memorize it. The user interface doesn’t tell you how to nudge an object by a pixel; in fact, merely from looking at the application, you wouldn’t figure out that this feature even exists.
When natural user interfaces resort to non-obvious gestures, they essentially regress into a really pretty, modern version of the quaint old command line interface.
I was shown the media’s future 16 years ago: now with the iPad, it’s here – The Observer
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I was shown the media’s future 16 years ago: now with the iPad, it’s here – The Observer
Alan Rusbridger on iPad and future of news:
"In the space of four days my sense of scale has changed. On Tuesday, my new iPad seemed like a rather overblown iPhone. By Friday, I found myself irritated at trying to read emails or type on the iPhone, which already seemed mean and cramped. A tabloid newspaper page seemed exotically large, a broadsheet like a street hoarding. The iPad just seemed natural. Maybe Apple has simply rediscovered what book publishers, over the space of 400 years, came to a more or less settled view on – the right shape of page for what the human eye and hands feel easy with.
[…]
Has the Guardian (or the Observer, for we share the same digital space) ever looked more beautiful? […] The NYT browser version doesn't look bad, either. The BBC, as ever, is irritatingly good
[…]
Will it catch on? It feels like a transformative interim step […]
Will it transform newspaper finances? […] only if you switched off the printing presses."
Del.ici.us tags: ipad apple alanrusbridger future journalism newspapers
Google’s Schmidt: ‘We Have A Business Model Problem, Not A News Problem’ – paidContent @ ASNE
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Google’s Schmidt: ‘We Have A Business Model Problem, Not A News Problem’ – paidContent @ ASNE
Eric Schmidt on future of news at ASNE:
"“When I go to a news site, I want that news site to know more about me, what I care about. I don’t want to be treated as a stranger.” To avoid what we used to call “daily me” where all you see is what you want and ask for, though, in Schmidt’s ideal news world, the site offers him options he might not like. “I want you to challenge me. Here’s something new; here’s something you didn’t know; here’s an opposing view.” Two thirds will ignore the option; he wants to reach the third that won’t. This has particular resonance if you think about the way Google has been using actions to predict behavior or to deliver information with Google Buzz, ad targeting in GMail and other areas."
Del.ici.us tags: asne ericschmidt google journalism newspapers onlinejournalism strategy ipad future business