The New York Times Company

I was pretty excited to see the New York Times offer Election 2012, a compendium of news, polling results, candidate bios and a primary calendar. The app was listed as free, but when you actually get it up and running you'll find it is severely limited. If you want all the content, you're going to have to pony up for either a $14.99 Smartphone subscription, or have an All Digital Access subscription for $34.99 a month. If you don't you'll have access to exactly 6 stories per day, and the rest of the content is locked. There are other ways to get your fill of political news. Politico has iOS apps that are politically impartial and free. The Hill is another source of good political news and opinion. PoliticFact.com also offers a non-partisan fact checking iPhone app, and if you want your news with a Democratic, Republican, or Libertarian slant there are plenty of apps to serve you. The Election 2012 app costs money and has ads as well, so I found it the worst of both worlds. If you are already a Times subscriber it's certainly worth a free download with lots of worthwhile content. I couldn't help but feel the app is simply bait to get you to subscribe to the Times. They have every right to ask for subscriptions for any product, but to advertise an app that is free but has very little content is something else again. If you don't want to pay for information that is mostly available elsewhere you have many other options. Read More

by The New York Times released its 2012 Election App for iPhone and iPod touch Thursday, which it calls a one-stop resource for political coverage and campaign news. The app integrates Web content with Times editorial coverage. Curated by a Times editor, the app’s news feed (its central feature) includes articles, blog posts, videos and tweets from external sources. The company says its syndicated political Op-Eds, editorials and blogs, such as The Caucus and Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, will make the app an essential mobile destination for politics buffs. Election 2012 is free to download, but only Times digital subscribers have access to all the app’s content, such as the Election Guide. As a non-digital subscriber, you can just see the top six stories. You can also access the app’s content from a desktop browser, here. “Our goal is for the Election 2012 App to be the destination for people turning to their phones to stay on top of the most important campaign stories of the moment,” Fiona Spruill, New York Times editor of emerging platforms, said in a statement. “There is a mountain of political news and information out there. We’re trying to make it easier for people by pairing The Times’s distinguished political coverage with a curated take on the best stories from around the Web and the social-media universe.” Like the “highlighted stories first” feature of Facebook‘s News Feed, users see the most important stories since their last visit when they open the app. The app, which requires iOS 4.0 or later, also features an Election Guide, a database of candidate profiles, poll results, tweets, state profiles, past primary results, delegate rules and a primary calendar. On primary nights, it will provide live updates of race results. Does this app sound like a good mobile politics resource? Do you use any other election apps? Read More

by 1 of 8 The Collection, a fashion-centric iPad app from The New York Times Company. 1 Users can browse content via thumbnails on a grid. 2 The app contains full-length news articles, blog posts and video interviews, including this one with Alexander McQueen designer Sarah Burton. 3 A short post from the Trends section. 4 Street style photography has its own category. 5 There is also a section for runway photography. 6 The app contains complete footage of Spring/Summer 2012 runway collections. 7 Thumbnails can be tapped for a full-sized view. 8 The Collection, a fashion-centric iPad app from The New York Times Company. Users can browse content via thumbnails on a grid. The app contains full-length news articles, blog posts and video interviews, including this one with Alexander McQueen designer Sarah Burton. A short post from the Trends section. Street style photography has its own category. There is also a section for runway photography. The app contains complete footage of Spring/Summer 2012 runway collections. Thumbnails can be tapped for a full-sized view. The New York Times Co. released an iPad app Tuesday that brings together multimedia-rich fashion coverage from The New York Times, T Magazine and the International Herald Tribune. The Collection is designed with the fashion reader in mind. The navigation is entirely visual: Users scroll through a grid of thumbnails to pull up content in five different categories: News, Trends, Street, Runway and All. Thumbnails link to full-length news articles, blog posts, video interviews, street style galleries and complete footage of Spring/Summer 2012 runway collections, among other things. Items can be shared via Facebook, Twitter and email. The app is free to download and access until De. 31. Beginning Jan. 1, 2012, readers will need to sign up for a Times subscription if they want to have complete access to the app. It’s a beautiful app that synthesizes much of the best of fashion journalism — from the New York Times Co., at least. It also presents an opportunity for the company to target ads to perhaps an even more affluent fashion audience than the one it currently targets through T Magazine and its Thursday Styles print section — i.e., those with iPads. Read More

Newspapers aren't dying. They're just being reinvented. These days, there sure are a ton of different places to find news online. Not only can it be overwhelming at times, but it can be a bit of a crapshoot, too. When you start raising the serious question of who out there you can truly rely upon for trusted reporting, though, why wouldn't you stick with the publications with the longest histories and strongest reputations? Here we list some of the best news apps for Android by some of the most trusted names in American print media. The king of old school media outlets, The New York Times for Android keeps things simple with its plain black and white, yet sleek Android app. Search news, browse categories and share your favorite articles with friends through email, Facebook or Twitter. The app supports offline reading and you can adjust the font size to your liking. Downloading the app won't cost you a cent, but a subscription is a little pricier than most at about $15 per month. Previously available exclusively for tablets, WSJ is a welcomed, brand new addition to the Android Marketplace. To gain access to news, articles, real-time market quotes or just save it all for later, you need to first register with the news giant. Just like New York Times, though, reading many of the stories in The Wall Street Journal app will cost you the price of a subscription. This one's a bit cheaper, though, as it will run you about $2 a week. Between daily news articles, sports scores and hyper local weather reports, USA Today is a well-rounded news app. Staying true to its reputation as an image-heavy news source, there's a special section just for photos and you can vote on your favorites each day. Readers can make adjustments to both the screen and columns to allow for more space. The Associated Press not only brings you breaking news stories from all corners of the globe, it also compiles top stories from more than 1,200 different newspapers. Browse articles and photos, view and customize categories, access photos and videos, and share articles with friends through your favorite social networking sites. You can also customize your home page with the categories that affect you the most. Newspapers is a catalog of all of the newspapers that print each day and it includes both domestic and international publications. The Read More

The San Francisco Chronicle's app is out today for the iPad. It joins the roster of major newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today that have all added iPad editions in the last several months. Of that group, only the USA Today app does not charge non-subscribers (of the print editions) for access. The Chronicle app is free for 30 days. Monthly subscriptions are US$5.99 and $59.99 annually. Current subscribers will get the iPad app for free. Unlike the 'dead tree' version, the app continually updates throughout the day and has features the regular print version can't duplicate, like 360 degree panoramas, animations and very current weather and traffic information. Subscriptions auto-renew unless you notify the Chronicle 24 hours before the subscription runs out. The digital edition does have ads. I took a brief look at the app and found it stable and easy to navigate. Checking the Chronicle website, I found that a paper subscription is $9.75 per week if you live in the Bay area, making the iPad edition a pretty good deal. Many of the newspapers and magazines are charging as much or more for electronic editions than for paper ones, and it remains to be seen if that is a very good business plan. Read More

The NYT's quality iPhone app got knocked up to 3.0, adding some handy features. The new version now includes Times blogs, in-article video and photo slideshows, breaking news alerts (via notification) when the app's closed, and inter-article swiping. [iTunes] Read More

‘The New York Times‘ stellte vergangenen Donnerstag ein digitales Abo-Modell für ihre Online-Publikation vor. US-Start: 28. März 2011. Das Angebot bietet jedem Leser 20 Artikel innerhalb eines Monats zum (weiterhin) kostenfreien Anschauen auf NYTimes.com. Danach wird zur Kasse gebeten. Achtung, jetzt wird es kompliziert: Wer $15 US-Dollar alle vier Wochen abdrückt, bekommt Zugang per ‘Web’ und ‘Phone App’. Für $20 US-Dollar beinhaltet die Offerte neben dem Ansurfen per Webbrowser auch noch die Verbindung via iPad-App – aber nicht mehr über das Telefon. Wer $35 US-Dollar zahlt, kann von allen Geräten – sozusagen sorgenlos – auf die identischen Web-Texte zugreifen. Ich bitte um Entschuldigung, aber das ist natürlich alles großer Quatsch. Am Konzept ‘gleicher Inhalt, unterschiedliche Geräte‘ scheiterten schon andere Content-Anbieter. DVD-Kopier- und Konvertier-Software löste das Problem für Filme. Die Bezahlschranke von Zeitungen lässt sich durch das Löschen des Cookies oder ein simples Kopieren und Einfügen der Headline in die Suchmaschine eurer Wahl umgehen. Klar: Auf neue Besucher, die über Google und Co. die NYTimes.com ansurfen, will man natürlich nicht verzichten. Deshalb lässt sich das System jedoch auch nicht komplett abschotten. Wer auch in Zukunft nicht den Sand einer DDR-(Zeitungs-)Insel aufschütten möchte, muss sich deshalb öffnen. Direkten Links von Facebook oder Twitter werden grundsätzlich keine Riegel vorgeschoben. Fest steht jedoch: Bezahlangebote gehen heutzutage zwangsläufig einher mit Freiwilligkeit. Freiwillig, eine jahrelang konsumierte Publikation mit Geld unterstützen zu wollen, nicht auf ‘freie’ (werbefinanzierte) Alternativen zu wechseln sowie aus freien Stücken nicht die grauen (oben verlinkten) Umwege einzuschlagen. Diese Investition von ‘freier Wahl’ setzt jedoch voraus, es dem Leser einfach zu machen. Das fängt bei der Technik an und hört beim Bezahlen auf. Oder umgekehrt. Die Dimension des Preises möchte ich (fast) unbewertet belassen. Artikel der ‘New York Times’ lese ich persönlich über Twitter-Empfehlungen aber nicht über den aktiven Webbrowser-Aufruf. Ab und an stolperte ich in der Vergangenheit auch in die leider nicht sehr stabile iPad-App (kostenlos; App Store-Link). Daher ist es gut möglich, dass $35 US-Dollar ein für viele Leser angemessener Preis ist. Immerhin ist es gegenüber dem Print-Angebot, das rund $60 US-Dollar pro Monat verschlingt, eine erhebliche Ersparnis. Trotzdem ist die Finanz-Aufstellung schlicht und ergreifend zu komplex. Schon das eigene FAQ als mehrseitig zu bezeichnen, ist eine derbe Untertreibung… Fest steht: Ein Webbrowser bleibt ein Webbrowser, egal ob am Laptop oder iPad. Die Nutzerperspektive ist eigentlich nicht schwer nachzuvollziehen: Wie bisher möchte ‘er’ die NYTimes.com konsumieren. Von welchem Gerät spielt für ihn überhaupt Read More

We knew it was coming, and now there is a date: the Gray Lady is charging admission this month. The New York Times digital products (the website, TimesReader app, phone apps and iPad edition) will be subject to a subscription fee for US customers starting March 28, with Canadian customers active now as a test population. Details were spelled out in a letter to readers and in a Times news story. As of 3/28, if you want to access the digital editions of The New York Times here are your options: There is no subscription plan available for just the NYTimes website. The lowest cost option is access to NYTimes.com plus a smartphone app for $15.00 per four-week period. A subscription to the NYTimes.com site and a tablet subscription is $20.00 for four weeks. Access to the website, smartphone and tablet editions is $35.00 for the same period. You can get a full breakdown on pricing here. If you are a subscriber to the printed newspaper there is no charge for online access. The Times digital subscriptions page suggests that a special introductory offer will appear on March 28. New York City subscribers to the Times can get the paper at home, in physical form, for anywhere from $6.20/week (daily paper only, no weekends) up to $11.70/week (all 7 days), after a 90-day half-off kickoff rate. Here in Arizona, I can get the printed version for about $60/month after the introductory rate. If you find a way to subscribe for less, the FAQ for the digital subscriptions says your digital access will be honored. Compare and contrast the $8.75/week maximum cost for the digital plans. The low-end online subscriptions ($3.75 a week) are cheaper after the 90-day window, but complete online access costs $420.00 $455 per year. For many customers who want digital access on both tablets and phones, it may actually be cheaper to subscribe to the physical paper. [Since the subscriptions are billed on a four-week schedule -- not a calendar month, unless that month happens to be February -- there are actually 13 billing cycles per year rather than 12. –Ed.] This is a bold and potentially risky proposition for the Times, but all traditional media are facing the same issues, and they have to do something or risk vanishing. This is really about changing reader behavior and finding out whether or not there is a core audience Read More

As a news junkie, I just can't get enough information. I adore Pulse, and I think Flipboard is interesting and useful. Like most of you, I spend a lot of time checking out news sites and using apps like the New York Times and the NPR app. Enter Zite. Zite is a just released free iPad app that constructs a magazine around your interests on the fly. When you first launch it, you suggest topics you like (Photography, Science, Technology, etc.), and then the magazine is created using RSS feeds and links to news and other sources. Some of the sources are well known, others are not (at least to me). You can also enter your Twitter name and Google Reader account info to further tune the personalization, although neither is required, and I didn't do it for my evaluation. The result is that you get a lot of content by discovery that you might not ever see. You can tell the app that you like a particular news source or author and click on some automatically generated key words. Over time, the content of your magazine shifts to reflect what you are reading and liking. You can also tell Zite what you don't like to further shape the future content. The on-screen pages look very nice. They are easy to read, and the content gets more space than it does in Pulse. You have some limited, but helpful, control over the font style and size. Every story has a sidebar that allows you to rate it so that Zite understands your interests. When you launch Zite, a page of top stories appears. Over the last few days, I've noticed Zite adjusting the content to things I've been most focused on. There are some negatives. I don't have enough control over eliminating stuff I don't like. In the pets topic, I chose birds as subject matter, but I got dozens of stories about Angry Birds. I told Zite that I didn't like those in the Pets section, but it still insists on putting them there. They are slowly going away, though. Another issue is that once you select sections based on your interests, you can't change the order of those sections. I also think Zite doesn't respond quickly enough to my likes and dislikes. Over time I can see the mix of content change, but I'd like it to be faster. Read More

You got your Verizon iPhone. It’s time to know about the Best Apps available for the device. We’re here to help you do that. This list is made up of some of our past favorites, compiled–for your convenience–into one massive posts to help your find the best applications for the Verizon iPhone. Hit the jump for the full list:   1) Fluent News (free) This is probably the best news App for your iPhone. It takes news from various sources and puts them on a single page. The only downside is that you will probably see some repeats as it tends to gather news from all the top publications. This is a free App that streamlines the news into one page for easy viewing on your iPhone. Simply touch a headline to view the full story. Push notifications can alert you when breaking news happens.   This is the ultimate entertainment App on iOS. If you have a Netflix account and an iOS device, you need Netflix. If you have an iOS device, but no Netflix account…you need to consider jumping on board. If anything, for the streaming service alone. 2) Flixster (free) In case you do decide to make it a movie night at the theatre, you can check out this App. It shows you what’s in your area and when. You can check out Rotten Tomatoes reviews, see what’s being released on DVD or what’s going to be in theaters in the near future. For instance (and this is a bit embarrassing…I think) we just opened the App and realized that there is a third Narnia movie. Not that we plan on watching it, but hey, we can check out show times and a trailer all from one simple App. Pandora is a sweet free App for streaming audio and music. It’s become truly useful with the multitasking, which makes it possible to run the App in the background while you do other things. This is the way it was meant to be used. If you like music, you should definitely check this App out.   1) Evernote (free) Evernote is a dream to work with. We have it on the iPad, iPhone and the laptop. You can use it to jot down or record ideas or even to snap photos and store them on a server for access from any of your devices. This is great for anybody who is on the move and wants Read More