It’s Caucus Day in Iowa, and most Americans will be tuned into their favorite news channel to see who the winner will be. This year, though, the elections entered the twenty-first century due to The New York Times’ “Election 2012” free iPhone application available through the App Store.
According to the NYT, the app gives iPhone users “news, opinion, polls and live election night results,” from its own publication and other top sources, while providing “the best campaign coverage anywhere.”
The New York Times reveals yet another tidbit from the Steve Jobs bio: The next business he wanted to transform was the school textbook business.
He held meetings with major publishers about partnering with Apple, the book says. If textbooks were given away free on iPads he thought the publishers could get around the state certification of textbooks. Mr. Isaacson said Mr. Jobs believed that states would struggle with a weak economy for at least a decade. “We can give them an opportunity to circumvent that whole process and save money,” he told Mr. Isaacson.
It isn’t exactly clear how the business model would work in this case but perhaps the fruits of that labor will be seen in coming months and years.
Perhaps more tantalizing, the Times teases that in his resignation meeting, Jobs also peppered Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller with questions about the data capacity of 4G cellular networks and what features should be in future phones. (FaceTime?!)
Details from the upcoming Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson continue trickling in as big media got an early copy of the book. Both the Associated Press and the New York Times have published excerpts that offer a unique insight into the life of the famously private Silicon Valley luminary. According to a New York Timesarticle from yesterday, after attempting to combat a cancerous tumor on his pancreas with a special vegan diet, Jobs then turned to the latest in modern medicine, which included an experimental gene therapy:
According to Mr. Isaacson, Mr. Jobs was one of 20 people in the world to have all the genes of his cancer tumor and his normal DNA sequenced. The price tag at the time: $100,000. The DNA sequencing that Mr. Jobs ultimately went through was done by a collaboration of teams at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and the Broad Institute of MIT. The sequencing, Mr. Isaacson writes, allowed doctors to tailor drugs and target them to the defective molecular pathways. A doctor told Mr. Jobs that the pioneering treatments of the kind he was undergoing would soon make most types of cancer a manageable chronic disease. Later, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson that he was either going to be one of the first “to outrun a cancer like this” or be among the last “to die from it.
A 60 Minutes preview with Walter Isaacson also touched on Jobs’ cancer treatment, with the biographer revealing that Apple’s late CEO in hindsight was regretful for going with a special diet rather than chose to operate on it sooner. Another interesting tidbit from the New York Times article: Apple’s co-founder began designing his own luxury yacht back in 2009. This is a surprise since Jobs was many things, but not the kind of guy who would display his wealth:
We passed up the New York Times iPhone story earlier because it didn’t really contain any new product information. We’ve been hearing early October for awhile now in terms of when the iPhone gets released. Therefore, the announcement in ‘weeks’ isn’t news either.
two people with knowledge of the inner workings of Apple’s next-generation iPhones say either the iPhone 5 or iPhone 6 will include a new chip that is made by Qualcomm.
Helpful.
But here’s some real info: We’ve heard that there are indeed two different models of iPhone coming out next month (announced this month?) We still think October 7th is the scheduled release date give or take any delays. We’ve heard the low-end model, which is essentially an iPhone 4 look-alike (glass front and back), is rolling off the assembly line in big numbers right now. Apple expects to have 10+ million of these things on hand for launch and full ramped production into the holiday shopping season. These will be priced aggressively and be everywhere.
The New York Timesreports that Apple is close to approval on the Grand Central Station Apple Store that has been rumored over the past year:
When Apple proposed opening a store on the balcony overlooking the main hall, it submitted its bid in linen-lined boxes, as if it were a wedding present to transit officials, a source familiar with the application process said. The board is expected to approve the deal as early as next week, at its monthly board meeting.
Using Apple’s set of APIs, the New York Times has opened up in-app subscriptions in their iPhone and iPad appreportsMacstories. After setting a paywall not too long ago the New York Times has been looking for ways to get their users to sign up for the subscription. It appears the Times has found their way, through the app store, offering subscriptions for website, iPhone, and iPad access. The Times is charging users $15 for access to the website plus iPhone, $20 for website plus iPad, and a combo of all three for $35. If you’re interested download the apps here and here.
In this digital age, do you agree with the New York Time’s subscription model?
The New York Times made the announcement today that marks the end of free news on their website. From now on, you will be able to access up to twenty online articles per month free of charge. Reading the news on your smartphone will set you back fifteen bucks a month and five more bucks if you’re accessing their content from a tablet. They also offer a combined $35 per month plan that buys you full access to the New York Times website via the web, as well as smartphone and tablet apps.
The iPad is taking a lesson from the iPod and beginning to seize a place in US schools, some of which are beginning trials to test the efficacy of providing the Apple tablets to kids, even while New York City orders thousands of iPads for its schools. Expand Expanding Close
