New York Times flirts with HTML5 web app for iPad

The New York Times has released an experimental HTML5 web app designed for the iPad. The app is available to those with access to either the tablet-only or all digital offerings from the Times. The New York Times web app provides the same news content as the native app, while at the same time offering some unique features, such as trending section to show the most popular stories, the Times Wire, which continually updates with new stories, and the ability for readers to browse the app as they would the newspaper. Interestingly, it appears that it needs to be accessed exclusively from an iPad, not being viewable from a desktop browser. In a statement, a Times spokesperson gave the reason for making the web app:

“Our subscribers have told us they are interested in trying new ways of reading The Times across a variety of platforms,” said Denise Warren, senior vice president and chief advertising officer, The New York Times Media Group, and general manager, NYTimes.com. “We are working constantly to develop new products that distribute our content in innovative ways, and this Web-based app is just one example of that.”

The New York Times isn’t the the first newspaper to go the HTML5 route. The Financial Times created a web app and pulled its native app from the App Store after Apple implemented new subscription rules in iOS 4. The move gave the Financial Times more control over their platform and cut Apple out of any subscription revenue and the New York Times may be looking for similar control, though they have not removed their native app from the App Store at this time. To install the New York Times web app, which is noted as being experimental, go to app.nytimes.com on an iPad and add it to your home screen.
Are you a New York Times subscriber? What do you think of the new web app?
Source: Businesswire

Previously Untold Recollections of Steve Jobs: 'Scuffgate' 2004, 'Hide the Porsches', and More

Years before the iPhone 5 scuffing and scratching controversy, Apple CEO Steve Jobs played a role in another scuffing incident at the company's then brand-new Stanford Shopping Center mini retail store. According to Forbes' Connie Guglielmo, who relates the anecdote as part of a series of previously untold stories and recollections of Jobs, he initially refused to step outside the store to greet reporters at the store's 2004 grand opening as he had a "meltdown" over scuffing on the white floor and handprints on other finishes throughout the store.

Jobs was ultimately convinced to step outside, and the curtain was drawn before the small gathering of reporters. When I saw the floor, I immediately turned to Jobs, standing next to me, and asked if he had been involved in every aspect of the design. He said yes. “It was obvious that whoever designed the store had never cleaned a floor in their life,” I told him. He narrowed his eyes at me and stepped inside.

According to an Apple executive who later reported back Guglielmo, Jobs brought in the store design team and had them clean the floor the night after the grand opening, presumably as a means of emphasizing the importance of material selection in the design process.


Apple's Stanford mini store
The article shares nearly a dozen such anecdotes from a variety of sources, offering a bit more insight into how Jobs worked and interacted with others. Another story addresses Jobs' efforts to hide his Porsche from the view of billionaire H. Ross Perot, who was contemplating an investment in NeXT.

[NeXT software engineer Randy] Adams, using some of the cash he’d earned from the sale of his company, bought a Porsche 911 at the same time Jobs did. To avoid car-door dings, they parked near each other–taking up three parking spaces between them. One day Jobs rushed over to Adams’ cubicle and told him they had to move the cars.

“I said, ‘Why?,’ and he said, ‘Randy, we have to hide the Porsches. Ross Perot is coming by and thinking of investing in the company, and we don’t want him to think we have a lot of money.’” They moved the cars around to the back of NeXT’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif. and Perot invested $20 million in the company in 1987 and took a seat on the board.

Other anecdotes come from a variety of sources, including Internet browser pioneer Marc Andreessen, former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki and Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. The article is being included in the October 22 print edition of Forbes.

Steve Jobs Envisioned the iPad in 1983

Visionary is one of the most frequently used words to describe Steve Jobs. Nearly a year after he passed away, historians are still digging up treasures from his life that confirm that assessment.


The Next Web writes of a speech Jobs gave in 1983 at the Center for Design innovation. After that speech, he had a question-and-answer session that covered a wide range of topics, one of which was an incredibly detailed assessment of Jobs' vision for a "computer in a book" that one could learn how to use in 20 minutes.

"Apple’s strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes. That’s what we want to do and we want to do it this decade," says Jobs. "And we really want to do it with a radio link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything and you’re in communication with all of these larger databases and other computers."

The full recording of the speech including the Q&A is available at LifeLibertyTech.com, with the Q&A starting about 21 minutes in.

Walter Isaacson also revealed some tidbits behind the development of the iPad in Steve Jobs' biography.

(Image courtesy Matt Buchanan)