David Carr has a piece about how the rumored Apple tablet may be able to save print media:
The tablet represents an opportunity to renew the romance between printed material and consumer. Think of sitting in your living room, in your bed or on a plane with a publication you really adore nestled into your lap. Since print was first conceived, people have had an intimate relationship with the text, touching, flipping and paging back and forth.
The tablet, properly executed, will be an iPhone on steroids, and anybody who has spent any time with that device knows that much of its magic lies in replicating that intimate offline navigation. It is a very human, almost innate, urge — readers want to touch what they are seeking to learn.
Honestly, I think this is sheer wankery — any time you’re betting that a new technology that doesn’t yet exist will save an industry via a new business model that doesn’t yet exist, you’re probably wrong.
And yet I find the idea kind of intriguing. There is something about the lay-out of hard-copy papers that I prefer to online editions (even though I mostly read online editions) and in some ways I prefer reading the NYT on my iPhone to reading it online (I also like the Sportacular and Fandango Apps better than their online counterparts).
Do any of you think there is any way some kind of table device could revive the print media industry? Obviously, it’s unlikely, but is there any chance? I assume a lot of you know much more about this stuff than I do.
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