Rupert Murdoch thinks the iPad is the saviour of the print publishing industry. Figures just released tend to go against that belief.
Wired was one of the first big print magazines to launch on the iPad. Figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation in the US show it sold 100,000 downloads in June. It dropped to 23,000 in November.
There have been drops for other magazines: Vanity Fair down from 10,500 in August to 8,700 in November....GQ 13,000 to 11,000...Glamour 4,300 to 2,775.
Many other publications don't release their figures.
More after the jump....
It would be easy to put it down to novelty value wearing off. But there could be other important factors as well.
The way magazines and newspapers are sold on the iPad is all over the place.
With many, you have to buy each edition as a one-off. With others, you get access to the iPad edition if you subscribe to the print edition (who wants both?). Or you get access to the iPad edition if you subscribe to the publication's website.
Everyone involved knows this is not good. Customers are confused.
Apple and the publishing industry are trying hard to come to an agreement on in-app subscriptions: you download the magazine/newspaper app for free and then sign up in the app for a subscription. Apple will then suck a monthly payment from your bank account, probably through the iTunes payment system.
Of course, Apple wants a cut of this. It's arguing for 30%, the same as it charges for apps and books.
It's known that Apple and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp are near agreement. If they sign on the dotted line, the first in-app subscription to be launched will be News Corp's The Daily, an iPad-only newspaper. Murdoch has hired the staff, who're sitting waiting in an office block in New York.
If and when The Daily is up-and-running, the others will follow.
Oh..and I forgot to mention another reason sales for some are down. They're just bad apps. Clunky, unintuitive, ugly and take ages to download.
Comments