The Members Forum

ome major publishers are currently facing off against Apple over iPad apps for their publications, and I think I know who the winner will be.

Out of the blue Apple has decided to make life miserable for the world's largest publishers by offering them access to the iPad platform on onerous Apple terms. This may or may not last, but should be fun to watch.

The idea is that Apple intends to keep the iPad a walled-in device, meaning you must go through the Apple App Store to get programs to run on the thing. The bogus excuse for doing this is to protect the dumb users from viruses and harmful programs, which may interfere with the usefulness of the device.

We all know this is baloney. The real reasons are control and money.

As it now stands, Apple wants 30 percent of the action for any newspaper or magazine app, and all the credit card and billing information stays with Apple. The publishers are squawking about both the commission and the fact that they cannot track their own customers.

The irony here is that Apple is adamant about not letting the device become the free and open platform that was kind of promised by the pundits. Instead, it is going to be a cool device for people who are happy doing what Apple tells them to do.

The rift between the publishers and Apple has an interesting unintended consequence. These publishers are the same folks who have catered to Apple with soft reviews and fawning praise for all things Apple. By this, I'm referring specifically to The WSJ, The New York Times, and USA Today. These are, coincidentally, the same three news organizations that desperately want to find new ways to distribute their papers and had high hopes for tablets.

I'm not so sure that Apple is doing the right thing by putting the screws to its more ardent supporters. But unless these folks are completely naïve, they must know that Apple runs a tight ship and does things its own way without much outside influence. So, I doubt the company will knuckle under to the complaints we are seeing scattered about the media.

In the olden days, the big publishers would not put up with any of this and would begin a mean-spirited campaign to condemn the company in every way. They'd look into the still sketchy stock deals done between Apple and Steve Jobs. They'd get more serious about discussing his health and the future of the company. They'd actually be critical of Apple products. (The way it looks now, Apple's products are flawless!) And on and on. But this all seems to be off-limits.

What will we see instead? So they can remain on the good side of Steve Jobs and actually get those rare interviews and quotes from him, they will continue to fawn over Apple. It borders on the hilarious.

The attitudes of these publishers, which shows a real lack of backbone, is part of the reason they are in this situation in the first place. I'm not convinced that the public hasn't simply lost faith in the integrity of the news media, because the media cannot even stand up for itself anymore. How are they going to represent the public interest if they do not even represent self-interest and survival?

Personally, I think this sort of thing stinks, and I'd like to see it destroyed. People should be able to do what they want with these products. They should be able to subscribe to whatever they want from any source they want.

PC Mag has the Editorial HERE!