technology
DEAD TREES STILL STAND TALL
I
Michael Cross on the latest trends and kit
f there’s one thing more irritating than paying Rupert Murdoch money, it’s paying him twice for the same newspaper. Yet that’s what I’ve been doing at least once or twice a week since I became an enthusiastic early adopter of The Times on iPad. While I’m still a big fan of The Times iPad app (and of the web paywall principle) I still find myself regularly forking out a quid for a deadtree edition. The reason is a problem that needs sorting out before we contemplate moving to an all-electronic news future. The main point of an iPad app, as opposed to simply browsing the web, is that you download the whole edition in one go. You can then read it on the bus or the train – and, yes, in the smallest room – without the tyranny of a mobile data connection. But however cleverly you compress it, a newspaper or magazine edition is a big file. On my home Wi Fi network I reckon it takes at least 70 seconds to download. That doesn’t sound much in theory – it’s a sight quicker than opening a batch of web pages, let alone nipping out to the newsagent – but it’s still an age to spend looking at a blank screen. It is particularly so in the
REVIEW DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER: SONY ICD-UX200 Tech confession time, again.
Although I’ve used digital voice recorders for nearly 10 years now, I’ve never actually done anything with the electronic sound data they create. I just store the files on my trusty Olympus until it runs out of memory, and then delete. I’ve never been bothered with copying, archiving or clever editing: life’s too short. However, since I’ve been trying out Sony’s new ultra pocket-size ICD-
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But however cleverly you compress it, a newspaper or magazine edition is a big file
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UX200 recorder, I’ve started building an archive of interviews. I can’t help it – the damn thing almost does it for you. When you’ve done your recording, just open the recorder’s pop-out plug, stick it in the USB port of your computer, and you’ll see your interviews displayed as MP3 files, to be played back, copied, or just archived for the day Carter Ruck comes calling. Most impressively, and against expectations, my laptop PC and desktop Mac both instantly recognised the machine as a digital recorder, with no fiddling around, no software downloading and no need even to open the manual. The same goes for recording, and
busiest time of day, in the rush to get out of the house in the morning. That would still be OK if you could launch the app in the background and get on with checking email while it downloads, but the iPad doesn’t multiple-task. In fact even touching the screen while an app is downloading can freeze the whole thing. The outcome – if I’m commuting into town and I *have* to read The Times that day, I’ll pick up a copy at the news stand rather than mess about with downloads. Brilliantly designed as The Times app is, it is still quicker to read on paper. For publishers, one approach to the problem is to offer a stripped down edition for maximum download speed. This seems to be the thinking behind the Telegraph’s somewhat dumbed down iPad version. However, I don’t believe that is satisfactory, particularly if they are expecting readers to pay for it. Maybe all this is a Murdochian trick to extract more money from readers, but I doubt it. The lesson is that, given current newspaper reading habits and the state of public Wi Fi coverage, newspaper junkies will continue to get their daily fix on dead trees.
for transferring MP3 files from your computer so it becomes a personal music player, too. Sony says the 2-gigabyte memory is enough for 535 hours of voice recording. All this in a £60 device that will fit in a shirt pocket without showing a bulge. The only downsides arise from the recorder’s very tinyness. The control buttons may be too small for some, and the gadget is also prone to disappearing down holes in pockets. In fact the first time I wanted to test it, I spent an embarrassing few minutes scrabbling in my bag before resorting to notebook and shorthand instead. Technology is great, but Mark 1 Teeline scores every time.
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7/2/11 16:00:52