Will Apple 'save' publishing?

Leaving aside the issue of whether publishing needs 'saving', some new initiatives point to an interesting future.

Apple revolutionised publishing once before. In the 1980s Apple helped kick off the so-called Desktop Publishing Revolution.

This initial revolution came at a time when the publishing industry didn't actually need saving, but it sure cut costs. The DTP era was kicked off when designers realised that the otherwise pricey and out-there Macs had WYSIWYG - 'what you see is what you get.'

We absolutely expect this now, but in those days, sending a file to a printer meant you didn't know what was going to come out until it did. But with WYSIWYG, a designer could put a masthead here, a picture frame there, change the typeface all on screen, and that's what came out of the printer.

Of course Apple's Graphic User Interface carried the WYSIWYG concept onto the very desktop of the computer itself, for ease of use, and the mouse further lowered the barriers to computer usage.

Adobe realised what was going on and created typefaces that could be printed on the first widely available laser writers (these also had Apple badges on 'em), along with Aldus (PageMaker), Macromedia (Freehand) and Quark (with Express).

Even Microsoft helped the process by putting a decent writing tool (Word) into the hands of all these new writers and publishers and, it could be argued, putting computing into the hands of the new company's accountants with Excel.

Some of these software houses were subsumed into Adobe (notably Aldus and Macromedia) and some disappeared (anyone else remember the horrendously named Publish It Easily? Just say it out loud ...)

Funnily enough, DTP may have saved Apple. Until DTP, Apple was in danger of having just a 'funny,' expensive computer with a weird mouse thing not taken seriously by computer people. Which all became its strength, with DTP.

Of course, the downside of DTP was that every man, woman and dog could suddenly produce magazines and flyers and newspapers with only a basic grasp of Mac skills - and some of the products really did look like they were produced by dogs.

But publishing empires all over the world were founded off the back of DTP, and many of these, including in New Zealand, are still going.

But there are new challenges. Surely you've heard that print is dying? Unfortunately, broadly, that does appear to be true.

First, so much content is available online. So why buy a print publication that comes out periodically, when the 'net gets updated by the minute? Unfortunately, the net is free - that's great for all infogobblers, but it leads to web publishers not being able to make incomes. Which means they don't have the money to pay writers. Which means they hire who they can get, so 'real' journalism is suffering.

NZ journalists have been accepting 45 cents a word since 1987, by the way, as the standard rate. This is way behind other countries, including Australia. As if that's not bad enough already, some dodgy enterprises pay much less than that here, even for their print output.

Worse, many print publishers have utterly failed to embrace the web to build communities of users who will move with them away from print into the virtual space. There are many tragically badly-handled examples of this. The result is good magazines disappearing (yes, there are still some good mags out there).

So, what's going to happen? Luckily for those to whom information is gold, there's lots happening. There are audio books and other publications that you can listen to on cell phones, iPods and iPhones, and you can read electronic versions of worthy projects on anything with a large enough screen.

In a way, even iTunes is trying to reengage readers with its iTunes LP concept, which is actually an image-heavy, JavaScript-driven webpage that only renders correctly in iTunes, according to this Ars Technica analysis.

At the moment, iTunes LP doesn't work on an iPhone or an AppleTV, but most likely the rumoured imminence of a new Apple TV model will add iTunes LP support, as LP is an obvious fit for home theatre.

But there's a lot more coming than that. A modern consumer electronic device has three facets: hardware and software - and the media that runs on it.

If Apple launched a tablet, it also needs to enable media for it.

Apple is apparently in the process of persuading publishing houses, magazine companies and textbook publishers to make interactive books and magazines. These would work on interactive, multitouch devices, to further fuel Apple tablet rumours.

Just reproducing print on a tablet with some computing power is a no-brainer. It's also a bit boring. A more enticing idea is having publishers create content that draws from audio, video and interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers.

If you'd like a glimpse of a possible publishing future, look no further than musician and erstwhile author, Australian Nick Cave. Well, OK, look a bit further. The firm Enhanced Editions was founded in 2008 after the birth of the App Store. The company created an iPhone app for publishing 'enhanced' ebooks - and its first enhanced eBook is Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro.

I'm not saying it's a great book - I don't know. If it's anything like his work made into a truly heinous Australian Western-style shoot 'em up movie, I shudder to imagine - but hey, Cave's written some brilliant songs in his time and Bunny is getting good reviews.)

The book is available as a $30.99 app (there's also a free version restricted to the first three chapters, if you want a taster. Be warned it's R17). The app itself is getting even better reviews. It includes the Bunny Munro ebook, an audiobook narrated by Nick Cave himself, synchronised to the text, an original ebook soundtrack composed by Cave and Warren Ellis which has been mixed for headphones plus (for the real Cave fans) 11 videos of Cave reading excerpts from the novel.

In the app, you can switch between audio and ebook versions. It remembers your place even if you switch formats. It has tilt-to-scroll, you can add bookmarks and even email quotes to your friends.

There's also built-in news reader that receives news and extras sent to the app. Enhanced Editions has told Cult Of Mac it has other multimedia tricks up its sleeve, but it's keeping them under wraps.

Let's hope, if the mythical Apple tablet becomes a reality, Enhanced Editions is along for the ride.

- Mark Webster mac.nz

 

PHOTO: A Kindle reader application for iPhone. (AP)