Steve Jobs Apple iPad will not save journalism

Charlie Sheen's iPad will have a lot more than Old Media apps

At the All Things D Conference on Tuesday, Steve Jobs was asked the now all-too-familar question: "Will the iPad save journalism." Rather than chuckle or make the All Things D interviewers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher look stupid, Jobs gave an answer that was essentially feeding them catnip. Jobs said:

We have a lot of goals for it, but one of my beliefs very strongly is that any democracy depends on a free, healthy press...I think we need editorial now more than ever," he said. One way to overcome the economic hurdle is for people to pay for content, he added, and the iPad offers a way to have applications rather than just static web pages."

Those statements prove Steve Jobs himself is so in love with his elegant creation the iPad, he thinks it can stop a tidal wave and keep Charlie Sheen out of jail. The comments at the All Things D Conference also prove that Steve Jobs is old. He doesn't really understand how much culture has changed because of the advent of the web, demographic change, and web economics. All of this and Steve himself is still feeding the same monster that's eating the press as this is written.

It's no wonder Apple had this awful iPad video I mentioned before:



All of this was evident to me at the Tech Crunch Disrupt Conference last ween in New York City, as I was talking to a WIRED Magazine representative about their new iPad app. All of the iPads were adjusted such that it looked as if the machine was just for WIRED. It looked like an electronic version of the magazine. But when you pressed the appropriate control, the WIRED content went away and its app was in a sea of other iPad apps on the screen.

All iPad apps face the same life fate: people get excited about them, the app is hot, it builds a following, then its used, and as it is, other apps are created to compete against it, so it eventually becomes used less and less and just one of a sea of apps on the machine.

And Old Media expects to survive in that process? That's silly. Additionally, and to rub salt in the wound this blogger created, appropriate since Steve Jobs quipped that he didn't want to "see us descend into a nation of bloggers," WIRED had not figured out how to price their iPad app to reflect content changes, according to the rep I talked to.

The WIRED iPad app's price does not include update pricing because WIRED had not figured out how to do that as of this writing.

OK. So lets' say they did figure it out. Here's my question: how do you notify the user and get that person to pay again for the WIRED content with the same energy they did so (assuming they do) when the app was first released? Just saying they will is the stuff of fools. The System Dynamics of web and mobile user behavior is they will not.

Why does an iPad media app have to be a paid affair? Why can't a media company make a free app, stuff it with adds by sponsors, and promote the hell out of it? That would harm the "paywall" apps like WIRED's, reducing their potential revenue and causing the app to get lost in that sea of icons I referred to.

Then, what's to stop popular bloggers or any blogger from having their own free iPad app? Nothing. After a time, the same System Dynamics of Internet choice, click demand, and oversupply of choices will conspire to wreck Old Media dreams that the iPad will save it.

And the same bloggers Steve Jobs seems to discount will end up taking over his beloved iPad.

Stay tuned.