The New York Times' site 'paywall' detailed, launches March 28

The New York Times has just announced the details of its new Digital Subscription service or paywall, which it has been working on for a year. The company made the announcement both in emails to those already registered for free at its site, as well as in a story posted to its site.

For now, there are no changes. The changes begin on March 28. After that time, Web readers will have access to 20 articles per month. Upon attempting to access their 21st article, users will be presented with an option to buy into one of three digital subscription plans: $15 for a month of access to the Web site and a mobile phone app; $20 for Web access and an iPad app; and $35 for an all-platform access plan. The NYT has a page up detailing the plans; it also notes that those who come back on Day One, March 28, will have access to a special introductory offer.

For the NYT smartphone and tablet apps, the "Top News" section will remain free of charge, but for access to all other sections within the apps, they will ask readers to become a digital subscriber

Notably, for its iOS apps, the Times will be acceding to Apple's new subscription plans. That means that while it can offer subscriptions outside of its iOS apps, it must also offer then as in-app purchases, from which Apple takes 30 percent, and from which the NYT will lose access to subscriber data.

Current print delivery subscribers will have free and unlimited access across all Times digital platforms except, for now, e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Also, those who reach New York Times stories via search engines, Twitter, and Facebook will be able to access the stories for free. The only exclusion is that "certain" search engines will have limits.

You can probably guess what that means: Google referrals will be limited to five per day per user.

It remains to be seen how well this will work for the New York Times. Twenty articles a month is pretty generous, and the fact that you can get to stories for free even over that limit will lead those will a little tech-savvy to use Bing or some other engine to reach a story (just as they do with Wall Street Journal stories, which can be accessed in full via a Google search).

Additionally, people are still used to everything (or most of it) on the Web being free. Putting up this paywall will force people to decide where they want to go, and there are, unfortunately for the Times, plenty of other high quality places to go.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs sends supportive email to Japan staff, offers supplies

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reportedly sent an email message to Apple employees in Japan which was both heartfelt and supportive. In addition, Jobs and the executive team said that if any Apple employees knew of any supplies they were in need of, they should let Apple HQ know.

The email said:

“To Our Team in Japan,

We have all been following the unfolding disaster in Japan. Our hearts go out to you and your families, as well as all of your countrymen who have been touched by this tragedy.

If you need time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you. If you are aware of any supplies that are needed, please also tell HR and we will do what we can to arrange delivery.

Again, our hearts go out to you during this unimaginable crisis.

Please stay safe.

Steve and the entire Executive Team”

Apple has already been doing what it can to help its employees and the general public in Japan. It said up a dedicated section of iTunes to enable donations, and it also delayed the iPad 2 launch in Japan to allow its employees to focus on the crisis, and not a new product.

Via: MacRumors

Android browser tops iPhone on 84% of real-world website loading tests, 52 percent faster overall: report

iOS 4.3 introduced the new Nitro Javascript engine which was supposed to double JavaScript execution, although real-life testing by various sites hasn't necessarily shown that to be the case. Now, with all the flak about Web apps launched directly from the iOS home screen running two to two and 1/2 times slower than if launched via the Safari browser, it's the perfect time for an Android vs. mobile Safari browser test.

A series of some 45,000 load tests run by Blaze Softwareshowed a relatively recent Android smartphone (Samsung Nexus S) loading Web pages 52 percent faster than an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.3. The Nexus S is a good candidate for this sort of test, as it's running Android 2.3, the latest smartphone version of Android, and also runs stock Android, meaning no Sense UI, TouchWiz or MotoBlur UI layer.

On the other hand, the Nexus S is hardly the speed leader among recent smartphones, so this sort of result is even worse for the iPhone than it might be. The Atrix 4G has been said to be too powerful to be called just a smartphone, and the HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon's first LTE smartphone just released today has been labeled "freakin' fast" by LAPTOP magazine. Those, however, only run Android 2.2 (Froyo).

In addition to testing out 52 percent faster, Android’s Chrome browser bested the iPhone’s Safari by 84 percent of the websites tested faster. Also, the firm found that while both firms said their Javascript engines have improved from prior versions, it seems that those improvements are isolated to benchmarks and high-complexity Web apps, not typical browsing.

Here's what Blaze said about benchmarks vs. real-life browsing:

Past comparisons usually focused on custom-created benchmarks, such as the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. While useful, these benchmarks are very different than real world sites, and don’t reflect the actual user experience. This study measured the load time of 1000 real web sites, mimicking the experience users would get when browsing on their smartphones.

In terms of their methodology, Blaze said:

The study was done primarily on iPhone 4 and Google Nexus S. The websites used were those of the Fortune 1000 companies. Each page was loaded multiple times and on different days, measured primarily over WiFi. For each device, we used the median load time for the comparison. The total number of tests was over 45,000.

This study was made possible through custom apps we developed, used to measure page load time on mobile devices. These apps run on the actual devices, load a page on demand, and measure how long it took. These agents are available as a free service to measure your own site on Mobitest.

Blaze also used a number of methods to minimize anomalies in the testing, such as tossing out ed out results higher than 40 seconds or lower than 400 milliseconds, as those usually indicated server or network issues, and even rerunning the tests on different days. The full methodology is detailed in an appendix in their report.

The key conclusion is that benchmarks are fine, but real-world results will differ. What end users really care about, in general, are real-world results. It is, however, true that if more app vendors move toward Web apps on iOS because of Apple's App Store policies, Javascript performance may become more significant to end users.

White CDMA iPhone 4 icon shows up in iTunes 10.2

Nearly 3/4 of the way into the refresh cycle for the next iPhone (5), we are still waiting for the white iPhone 4. While we already received a confirmation (viaTwitter) from Phil Schiller, SVP of worldwide product marketing at Apple that the white iPhone 4 is coming in the Spring, we are now being teased that it might even come in CDMA (Verizon) as well as GSM (AT&T) versions.

It's been assumed for a while that Verizon might miss out on the white iPhone 4, which Apple last said was coming in the Spring, as it's been hard enough for Apple to produce a white iPhone 4 without the slight complication of two variations.

However, a MacRumors reader did some poking around in the iTunes 10.2 resource files and found an icon for a white CDMA iPhone 4 that would be displayed in the Summary window within iTunes when the device is connected. How did he know it was a CDMA version? As we know from the actual hardware, there is an antenna break on the top right side of the CDMA version that is not present in the GSM version, and that shows in the icon.

Naturally this doesn't guarantee we will see a CDMA iPhone 4 in white, but if Apple took the time to render the icon, there's more of a chance that it will actually exist than previously.

Schiller's Tweet, by the way, was pretty certain in its tone:

@airickanderson Hi Eric. The white iPhone will be available this spring (and it is a beauty!).

That said, with the iPhone 5 only three to four months away, how many sales of white iPhone 4s will Apple see?

Texas' Fox 4 films entire news story using iPad 2 camera

One of the better known new features to the iPad 2 are the front- and rear-facing cameras. Fox 4 in Texas decided to prove that indeed the rear-facing 5-megapixel camera does work, and used an iPad 2 to shoot an entire story.

The rear-facing camera on the iPad 2 isn't a market leader, meaning it is 5-megapixel, but so is that on the Motorola Xoom, and even the Motorola Droid X smartphone has an 8-megapixel camera.

Fox 4 said they were doing this because all the regular cameramen were busy, and because they were "innovators." It's claimed to be the first such news story filmed on an iPad 2, and considering the tablet just launched on March 11, it probably is.

Watch the video below, which was a story filmed in a liquor store in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Netflix reportedly outbids traditional networks for Kevin Spacey series

Netflix is about to move from playing, or streaming, the content of others to becoming a player in the content industry itself. According to a report in Deadline Hollywood, the company is on the verge of finalizing a deal for a new drama series produced by and starring Kevin Spacey called "House of Cards," for as much as $100 million. The director would be David Fincher.

The deal hasn't been finalized yet, according to the report, but Netflix has reportedly already outbid a number of rivals, including several major cable networks, such as HBO and AMC. Cable only series seem to run around 13 episodes or so per season, and the report states this series is no different. What is different is that Netflix has already signed for two seasons, or 26 episodes.

Although Deadline Hollywood's source was pretty clear about the terms of the deal, a later report by the New York Times said:

An executive close to the negotiations confirmed the report that Netflix had entered the bidding for the show. There was still considerable uncertainty Tuesday about the terms of the potential deal, and a Netflix spokesman declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal's source, however, said the deal was likely to fall far short of the $100 million that Deadline Hollywood source stated.
Netflix currently streams about 61 percent of digital movies, according to a very recent NPD survey, it's not going to stand still, not with rivals like Amazon.com launching their own initiatives that could have a real impact on market share. Amazon.com recently tied free video streaming of content to its Prime service; to make it really work, Amazon.com needs to add far more content, though.

Meanwhile, although Netflix does have partnerships with set-top box manufacturers such as Roku and plenty of Netflix ready TVs as well, much of the public won't be able to watch its series on a screen larger than a PC screen. That doesn't mean it won't work, however, as quite a few people have decided to cut the cord and rely on online video only.

Display expert who debunked iPhone 4's 'retina display' compares iPad 2, iPhone 4 displays

It may not have a retina display, but the iPad 2's display is just as good as the iPhone 4's, according to a display expert.

DisplayMate analyst Raymond Soneira put the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 displays through a series of tests in what he called a "Display Shoot-Out," and discovered that they perform very similarly. Soneira is also the same person who put the iPhone 4's "retina display" to the test last year, and debunked Steve Jobs' assertions about it.

The iPhone 4 has a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. The iPad 2 has a pixel density of 132 ppi. Obviously, higher ppi is better, but Soneira explained that existing anti-aliasing methods can successfully reduce noticeable pixelation at lower resolutions and ppi. He added that the high ppi of the iPhone 4 is mostly a "major marketing feature for the iPhone 4."

In addition, Soneira, while noting that the iPad 2's display is excellent, added that the iPad 2's anti-aliasing is "far from state of the art." He stated that it could be improved via software updates.

In the "shoot-out," the iPad 2’s screen tested out very similarly to the iPhone 4, with both devices earning “Very Good for Mobile” ratings in tests on contrast ratio and black levels, and “Excellent” ratings for their maximum brightness.

“There is no question that a higher ppi is better, but the real question is whether the iPad 2 delivers good display performance when considering its price point and battery power constraints,” Soneira said.

It was originally rumored that Apple was going to double the resolution of the iPad 2, from 1,024 x 768 to 2,048 x 1,536 pixels, but it was later said that Apple would hold off on that move until the iPad 3, due to manufacturing issues. In fact, the iPad 2 maintained the same resolution as the iPad 1, the aforementioned 1,024 x 768.

Last year, after Steve Jobs announcement about the iPhone 4's retina display, in which Jobs said the resolution was too great for the human retina to discern, Soneira put the iPhone 4 though its paces. While noting that the iPhone 4 had an excellent display, he said:

[...] the iPhone has significantly lower resolution than the retina. It actually needs a resolution significantly higher than the retina in order to deliver an image that appears perfect to the retina.

It's a great display, most likely the best mobile display in production (and I can't wait to test it) but this is another example of spec exaggeration.

He also noted that the speak about the "retina display" was just puffery.

“The marketing puffery is now in control. Everything that’s being said now is just this superamplified imaginary nonsense, and the only way to get people’s attention now is making more outlandish statements.”

Puffery, in legal terms, are "promotional statements and claims that express subjective rather than objective views, such that no reasonable person would take them literally."

Via: Wired

Jon Bovi Jovi: 'Steve Jobs personally killed the music industry'

Steve Jobs has been blamed for many things, but never something like this. The music industry should call him its bane, or its murderer, according to Jon Bon Jovi. In an interview with the Sunday Times magazine (subscription required), Bon Jovi laid the ailing music industry squarely at the feet of the Apple CEO.

He said,

"Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it.

"God, it was a magical, magical time. "I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?' Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business."

Perhaps the music industry, which has to appreciate the iPod and iTunes for at least keeping the money coming in, but with a different model than previously, should look at itself and greed somewhat for the lower profits it is seeing.

It is, of course, the case that the music industry as a whole is in decline, that folks buy singles more than they do albums, and that physical media (CDs) have lost their gloss. At the same time, the music industry isn't about to bail on iTunes.

It is true that what Bon Jovi describes sounds more about the buying experience than the listening experience. And after all, if these children want magic, they've got the iPad. don't they?

Angry Birds Rio to debut on Amazon AppStore at launch, not Android Market

Angry Birds Rio, the Angry Birds tie-in to the movie "Rio" which we have been talking about for some time, will launch soon, but don't go looking for it in the Android Market. Instead, you'll have to go to Amazon.com's soon-to-launch competitor, as the online retailer has scored a huge exclusive for the grand opening of the Amazon AppStore.


"Rio" is an animated movie that's scheduled to hit theaters on April 15. Angry Birds Rio is supposed to launch this month, before the movie hits theaters. In the new Angry Birds Rio, the original Angry Birds are kidnapped, taken to Rio, where they eventually escape and set out to to meet up with their friends, Blu and Jewel. Blu and Jewel are the macaw stars of "Rio" (with Anne Hathaway voicing Jewel and Jesse Eisenberg as Blu).

In addition, the Amazon AppStore will be receiving two more exclusives, and something that folks have been asking about for a long time: ad-free Android versions of Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons. Indeed, despite what people may think, customers are willing to purchase things in the Android Market.

It will eventually reach the Android Market, it sounds, but this ought to be interesting for AT&T users. Downloading and installing apps from anything but the Android Market is considered sideloading, but AT&T has shut down sideloading on its Android devices: it has that option removed from the OS settings app.

People can get around that by using some third-party solutions, but those require the .APK file on your computer in order to do so. If Amazon AppStore doesn't allow downloading of .APKs to your computer, AT&T users will be SOL.

The Amazon AppStore will launch very soon, as Amazon has just launched an @amazonappstore Twitter account. Then the "fun" will begin.

Zune hardware to be axed by Microsoft, but software to continue: report

She's dead, Jim. According to a report in SAI, Microsoft has decided to kill off the Zune music player.  To be clear, the company will continue to sell existing models. It will not, however, be developing new ones.

The original source of the information was Dina Bass, Bloomberg News Tech Reporter. In two Tweets, she said first that Microsoft would eschew any further hardware development on Zunes, but also that Microsoft would take the Zune software and on the Zune software that's used on Windows Phones, Xbox and other devices.

Zune was to be Microsoft's answer to the iPod.  However, it never took off, despite some respect for its software performance.  The ecosystem around iPod, iTunes and later, the App Store, was too much for Microsoft to overcome after it allowed Apple its huge lead.

Farewell, Zune.

Via: SAI