Given that the majority of the publishing industry continues to throw its toys out of the pram regarding digital editions and Apple, it’s interesting to read a very contrary viewpoint on FT’s Tech Hub, regarding the Telegraph Media Group’s iPad app:

Digital editor, Edward Roussel, says Apple has been “co-operative and helpful” during its development.

That was particularly true in making the app easy for existing print subscribers to access for free and Apple was even flexible in allowing the Telegraph to access customer data. Data has been another big sticking point for publishers concerned that Apple would not hand over information about their customers.

The Telegraph iPad app will cost £9.99 a month, but Mr Roussel is happy to give £3 of that to Apple because the App Store is such a “user-friendly” way to pay—and in any case relatively similar to the costs of distributing a print product.

Whether this points to a possible thaw in the frosty relationship between Apple and print publishers remains to be seen, but newspapers (and, indeed, book and magazine publishers) need to find ways to stay relevant, and an iPad app is one of them, despite any enforced compromises.

Via Cult of Mac.

Ben Brooks asks:

if you had to start over, buying all of your apps from scratch, in what order would you buy them (the assumption being you couldn’t afford to re-buy them all at once, but over time you could afford them all). I have been thinking about this for a while now and I started with a list of all the apps I normally use that I would need to purchase. From there I started arranging them in order of what I would buy first.

I’m going through something vaguely similar now, because I have a new iMac. Rather than fire old data across, I’m thinking ‘what should I install first?’ and only having the most important applications on there.

But if it was a case of literally installing in order, how could that be achieved? I use SuperDuper! for back-ups, but could conceivably get by on Carbon Copy Cloner for a while first; I use Scrivener and WriteRoom for writing copy, but could use TextWrangler. In each of these cases (and more), I end up imagining using a sub-optimal solution, in order to create a linear list.

Entire world:

You’re overthinking this, you idiot.

Yes, fair enough, so here’s the stuff I absolutely would have to have installed, and that one has to pay for, in a vaguely linear order:

• SuperDuper! (incremental back-up/cloning)
• Scrivener (fantastic writing app)
• Acorn (image editor)
• SizeUp (window management)
• WriteRoom (full-screen text editor)
• On The Job (time tracker)
• Numbers (spreadsheet)
• Photoshop (image editor)
• Transmit (FTP client)
• BBEdit (text/code editor)
• Default Folder X (open/save dialog add-on)
• GarageBand (audio editor)
• Call Recorder for Skype (recorder, for use in interviews)
• iPhoto (photo catalogue)
• PhoneView (iOS device manager)
• iStat Menus (system monitor—I use it for the clock)

I do use other software, but those are the ones I’d really miss, roughly in the order that I’d miss them (or, rather, in the order that I depend on them).

UPDATE: A few people have asked where Dropbox is, which is fair enough. The above list concentrated on paid-for applications, which wasn’t clear. Free stuff I currently use daily includes Dropbox (online back-up/sync), Pastebot Sync (iOS-to-Mac copy/paste), Twitter, the Reeder for Mac beta, Carbon Copy Cloner (cloning, as a fail-safe in case SuperDuper! doesn’t work) and The Unarchiver. These, of course, could all be installed on day one.

Another day, another bonkers comment by RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. In a Guardian article, it’s stated that he told reporters:

publishers want to be in control of their destiny, their business, their content. I don’t think they are willing to be hijacked in the way the music industry was before.

This is of course at once a barbed attack at Apple and sucking up to Adobe, whose software can be used to develop apps for the PlayBook, which, at the last count, supported approximately 53 billion SDKs, including “shit created for the VIC-20”.

But let’s back up a bit: Apple “hijacked in the way the music industry was before”. Presumably, Lazaridis is critical in what Apple did to become so dominant in music industry sales. And, presumably, that’s bad for the industry and consumers, right? After all, Apple:

• Created a system that enabled users to buy with ease, convincing some people to part with cash rather than downloading illegally;
• Fought hard for DRM-free audio, and eventually won that particular war, killing dead the ridiculous lock-in digital music files once had;
• Enforced price-points that kept music purchases affordable, but still left room for artists to profit;
• Made it easier for people to cherry-pick single tracks rather than be forced to buy an entire album for a few good bits;
• Ensured that the music industry carried on making money.

THOSE CUPERTINO BASTARDS! How dare they make digital music popular and become dominant by offering a user-friendly solution, also raising the profile of online music in general, to the benefit of the competition and the entire industry as a whole!

Man, sometimes I wish someone would hijack Lazaridis’s mouth. At least then something that makes sense might come out of it.

Nearly a year ago, I opined on TechRadar that Apple declares that the mouse is dead. As soon as I saw Apple’s Magic Trackpad, it was clear to me that while Apple had popularised the mouse, it now believed the time had come to bin it:

iOS has taught Apple that the general public responds extremely well to gesture-based computing, and while Apple trackpads still force a level of abstraction that a touchscreen device does not (controlling something by touching in one place while seeing it elsewhere, rather than direct interaction with content), they nonetheless enable users access to intuitive multitouch gestures that are becoming increasingly commonplace.

It’s unlikely that we’ll suddenly see iOS apps appearing on an iMac anytime soon, or a fully touch-based Mac (hello, RSI!); but what we will see is Apple increasingly working multitouch lessons learned on iOS into Mac OS X, and consumers happily moving between Mac OS X and iOS without a second thought.

And although Magic Trackpad is a standalone accessory today, don’t be surprised if it’s suddenly bundled with new desktop Macs in 2011, consigning the suddenly limited-in-scope Magic Mouse and other Apple mice to history.

Although I was bang-on about Mac OS X (what with all the gestural stuff being added to Lion), I apparently got my timing wrong regarding the trackpad, given that it’s not yet bundled with new desktop Macs; but it’s nonetheless interesting to see Apple’s BTO page today for the new iMacs.

The trackpad hasn’t yet usurped the mouse, nor is it even the default option, but it is now a straight switch, with no premium price. To that end, I think I was simply a year out—next year, Apple will swap the default, so you’ll get a trackpad in the box, but a BTO option of a mouse. And not long after that, an Apple-branded mouse will cease to be an option at all.

Hat-tip to Craig A. Hunter, who posted the following image to his blog.

Sadly for RIM, when Amateur Hour was over, all they had to show for it was the PlayBook! *

OHO!

* which should not be compared to a ham