WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

One year ago I produced a temporary blog about the launch of the first iPad.

I went to San Francisco for the launch and since then the tablets became the media topic of the year.

So, re-reading now the (Spanish) entries of my TABLETMANIA blog I realized that 110 % of what I said, I am sorry, was right!

Not bad for something new and received by many gurus as a DOA, “death on arrival”, product.

They were wrong.

I was right.

So, now that tomorrow Apple is going to present the new iPad2 I decided to update the entries of the blog of try to find editors for an instant book in Spanish and English

Any leads?

If yes, please contact me at: giner@btinternet.com

illustration by Luis Graena

What an impressive new Macbook Air!

Presented a few minutes ago.

With only flash memory.

And great battery time.

With Steve Jobs, as always, expect the unexpected!

The New York Times David Carr makes the point about how Consumer Reports i in the “credibility business”

“It was a big week for Consumer Reports and a reminder that media that is unsupported by advertising can often have an impact that more traditional publishing, or even the most tech-savvy, enterprises don’t. With 3.9 million subscribers to its magazine and 3.3 million paid subscribers to its Web site, Consumer Reports has a combined paid circulation of 7.2 million, up 33 percent since 2004.”

—

“If you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger. That’s a maxim of modern public relations, one that’s on display every day in Washington, on cable TV and, last Friday, on stage in Cupertino. But, with its long history and reputation for efficacy, Consumer Reports is the opposite of a juicy target.”

As Rob Curley said today in Twitter: Bless Consumer Reports!

Bad news?

Send any press release or held a press conference on Fridays…

That’s the PR tradition.

So Apple not very active PR department (the fans do the work for them) announced the iPhone 4 press conference… for tomorrow Friday.

Why?

My feeling is that not because they want to hide the bad news (they are right now everywhere) or because they need to give time to the press to come to Cupertino (in less than 12 hours any American, European or Asian journalist will be able to show up in California) but… because they are trying to gain as much time as possible in order to fix the problem, organize any refund, respond to any recall or to have the supply chain ready with the new phones.

The press conference is going to be at 10 am (California time), so the markets in New York (2 pm) still will be open, and able to react to the news.

This is my take:

If the news were BAD, they will had organize the press conference AFTER the closing of the markets in Manhattan.

But because there will be GOOD news, they want Apple shares going up as soon as possible as the best response to the iPhone 4 crisis.

Right now the shares are going down, like in the past few days: from $261 on July 8 to less than $247 today.

So this is my advice: buy Apple shares tomorrow morning BEFORE the press conference and cash them in the evening.

And buy a new fixed iPhone 4.

Reading this post about the “silent recall” of an iPhone 4, an old true story came to my mind.

A friend in Barcelona (Spain) bought a 1954 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn Sports Saloon like the one in the picture above.

One day, the huge and imposing car stopped and my friend left the Rolls-Royce in the street, called to London and a nice voice just asked him about how to locate the car and his private address.

“Don’t worry, in a few hours one of our engineers will be in Barcelona and will fix the problem”

Oh, boy! That was good service.

Two days later he got another nice call from London and the message was: the car is ready in front of your home.

Our friend went to the street and there it was.

Shining, like a new car… and working.

Well done!

But as he was waiting for the bill for many months, he decided to call again to London, asking for the bill.

To his surprise, another nice voice said to him without any doubt or consultation:

“A broken Rolls Royce? In Barcelona? I’m sorry Sir, but we don’t have any record that any Rolls-Royce, anywhere in the world had ever any problem. Thank you for your call.”

So perhaps Steve Jobs has decided to follow the old Rolls-Royce tradition.

Via Buzzhunt.

Next: the INNOVATION’s Rubber iPad.

The Times and The Sunday Times are ready to charge for access to their online editions.

A bold move.

Typical of Rupert Murdoch.

Like the typical trashing that he gets in the last few years regarding his fight against the “free for all”

Well, very soon we will know.

And… what if Rupert Murdoch is right?

I will suspend my judgement.

He loves newspapers and is taking big risks.

So I will not be surprise if, again, he right.

UPDATE:

Watch here Rupert Murdoch on the iPad, Apple and Steve Jobs.

Good news for Apple.

Bad news for its European fans.

Good news for their shareholders.

Bad news for Steve Jobs critics.

And good news for resellers.

As Reuters said: Apple decision to delay the sale of its iPad overseas may frustrate customers around the wortld but it brightened the day of at least a few crafty fans closer to home. So-called resellers, opportunists who scoop up hot products and sell them over the Web at inflated prices, have recently been charging premiums of more than $500 on sites like Craigslist or eBay for the iPad.

Bloomberg reports that Apple shipped more than 500,000 iPads during the first week and expects demand to exceed its supply for the next several weeks, according to a statement today.

So the iPad will be not sold outside the United States until the end of May.

The reaction of the markets was, again, very strong and the Apple shares hit new record numbers.

At $245.81 the investors were trading Apple very confident about the prospects of a tablet that could be in a few days another sold out product.

As Bloomberh said:

Apple has suffered from shortages before. Its iPhone 3G was sold out at almost all of its U.S. retail outlets 10 days after it was introduced in July 2008. A year later, soaring sales of the iPhone 3GS left it with too few units to meet demand.

UPDATE: Read here Why was Apple’s prediction on iPads so wrong?

30-minute ago the San Jose Mercury News reported:

“In Palo Alto, shortly past noon, shoppers got more than a new shiny object – Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed up and hispresence gave everyone a giddy brush with Silicon Valley high tech fame.

Wearing a black hoodie and jeans, Jobs , who came with his wife and daughter, scanned the displays of tech goodies and watched Apple employees give ipad how-to demonstrations.

And of course he drew amazed gazes from shoppers already expressing excitement overload – the equivalent of a sugar high for Apple fans.

“I love the ipad,” one twenty something female shopper said to Jobs.

To which he happily replied, “good!”

Many in the crowed pulled out cameras and iphones to capture the most magic Silicon Valley moment.

Jobs also chatted with a handful of other shoppers, but in the end most did not allow the 30 minute appearance — even by Apple royalty — to get in the way of the serious business of buying new iPads.”

Soon we will see the first real pictures on Flickr.

Steve Job to Stephen Fry in Time magazine:

“I think the experience of using an iPad is going to be profound for many people,” he says. “I really do. Genuinely profound.” That rings a bell. “I’ve heard it said that this is the device for you,” I reply. “The one that will change everything.” “When people see how immersive the experience is,” Jobs says, “how directly you engage with it … the only word is magical.”