NYTimes as an iPad App: A Bad Example
Not only is the NYTimes iPad app, slow, crashy, and annoying, but it also obliterates important formatting and features from the presentation on the web. Here’s an example from a Paul Krugman blog post which is presented with the view from inside the Opinion section of the app and from the website using iPad Safari.
1) It’s impossible to fully see if and when Krugman is quoting from Ozimek with the blockquote formatting blown away.
2) The hyperlink to the quoted post from Ozimek (which serves as acceptable way to reference while blogging) is oddly absent, quite literally breaking the web.
3) There is no hyperlink to rest of Krugman’s blog. Single blog posts from Krugman (as well as Brooks, Kristoff, The Dot Earth Blog, etc.) sit next to editorials, op-eds, and letters. It’s also unclear which blog posts are chosen to be inserted. They aren’t all in the Opinion section. Only a couple.
Even though the NYT has labeled a ton of its content as blogs, and displayed them as columns of posts, most recent on top, they’ve really never seemed to embrace blogging. This might be more evidence of that than of a crummy iPad app. But note this is the second crack that The New York Times has taken at an iPad app (the first was the Editor’s Choice app). They’ve had a year to get this right and they haven’t, you still can’t even select text, and now they want nearly $200 a year for the pleasure of its use.
The idea of an iPad app worth $200 (or $450) is genuinely exciting, but this isn’t it.
