Steve Yelvington is on the money when he says Apple’s iPad is not the new print.

Like me he thinks Apple has the tablet computer just about right “from a usability perspective”. And for many people, tablets will replace PCs.

Yelvington says old media companies like the iPad because it seems to return things to the business model they know and understand.

In my view, the iPad could herald a new era for the publishing industry, but it requires new business models. I don’t think selling iPad apps or expensive electronic editions of print magazines is the answer.

I doubt selling banner advertising, advertorial or ad words is the answer either. But both approaches may have a place in whatever publishing business model emerges.

A whack on the head from Maslow's hammer | yelvington.com

Just when the New York Times (NYT) most needs to show it can play in the digital world, it proves its cluelessness over online publishing by demanding Apple remove Pulse an iPad RSS reader.

Writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian tech journalist Adam Turner says the NYT has made “a fool of itself in front of the online audience it so desperately wants to woo”.

Turner is bang on the money.

The NYT says Pulse infringes its rights. But the RSS feed it delivers to iPad readers is publically available and free. Moreover the NYT publishes the feed. When readers see an interesting headline, they click-through to the paper’s own website.

If the NYT doesn’t like this, it could kill its RSS feed.

As Turner points out, in the eyes of the NYT Pulse’s biggest crime isn’t serving up its stories, but doing the job in style.

Ovum, a technology analyst firm, says Apple’s iPad isn’t the silver bullet newspaper owners are hoping for.

In a report dated May 28, the company says: “Apple’s much-hyped tablet device alone will fail to secure the future of news and magazine publishing.”

Adrian Drury, Ovum’s principal media and broadcasting analyst and report co-author, say: “The iPad promise is a set of new distribution channels for packaged media, but it is one device and volumes will take time to build. Traditional publishing’s challenge to find a new and sustainable business model is immediate.”

The company also says the market for iPad media will quickly become “congested”.

The company forecasts Apple will have shipped 13.2 million iPads by the end of 2011. This compares with 25 million iPhones shipped in 2009 alone.

Open source is a response to software market failure.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, PC software was dominated by one company: Microsoft.

Rivals couldn’t successfully sell alternative applications in the face of Microsoft’s monopoly power. Start-ups could get neither market traction or access to capital to grow their businesses.

By doing away with prices and distributing online, open source undermines Microsoft’s marketing and bypassed normal channels.

But developers need to eat. Free doesn’t buy much food.

Today Microsoft is no longer dominant. And thanks to Apple’s iPhone app store, which now extends to the iPad, individuals or small teams of developers can easily enter the software market.

With other companies also offering app stores, we are about see a thousand flowers bloom.

There will be app store millionaires. But more importantly there will be many developers who can now use their skills to put bread on the table.

The bazaar now challenges the cathedral.

But with developers able to make a living from their art, they will have less time and even less motivation to work on open source projects.

Some will survive on idealism, but if a developer has a bright new idea tomorrow, do you think it will see the light as a giveaway or as a $0.99 app store download?

Rupert Murdoch says Apple's iPad is a "potential saviour of newspapers". His wishful thinking doesn't stand close scrutiny.

On the plus side moving to the iPad will save publishers the cost of printing on mashed dead trees, wrapping and distributing.

Apple's 30% cut of revenue is the same as the mark-up made by newsagents and other physical outlets selling newspapers – so no savings there.

Editorial costs will remain the same. So the savings will be relatively small.

However you cut it, fewer readers will buy a digital newspaper than a printed newspaper.

You don't need special equipment to read a printed newspaper. Apple may have sold a million iPads, but that's not even 0.1% of the today's potential newspaper readership.

Even if this obstacle was overcome, fewer readers will pay for digital subscriptions than print subscriptions. The evidence to date suggests only 5% would pay, but even if this number was 25%, that's a huge drop in copy sales revenue.

Fewer readers means less adverting revenue.

And there will fewer readers per purchase. Printed newspapers are passed on. It will be harder to legally pass-on an iPad newspaper. This means even less advertising revenue.

True, iPad readers, who are identifiable are worth more to advertisers than unidentifiable print newspaper readers.

We'll put aside for now the idea that free online newspapers will get the lion's share of advertising.

The numbers don't stack up to support the idea that the iPad will save the newspaper industry.

Apple's iPad is the first of a wave of products which will rebuild the media landscape. They'll change media, but they are not the panacea Rupert Murdoch says they are.

• The iPad won't be on sale in New Zealand for weeks.
• Importing hardware can be expensive and risky. I'd prefer to buy an iPad with official Apple support.
• It's rarely wise to buy version 1 of anything new. Let others be guinea pigs. The only time it's worth taking a risk with new kit is if you can get a strategic advantage from it. That's not the case with the iPad.
• I don't need an iPad at the moment. This may change as my Paperless Journalist project develops.
• I'm secure enough to not worry about owning a status symbol.

Eventually I probably will buy an iPad or similar – but it's not in my current technology plan.  Don't let me stop you.

Your circumstances will almost certainly differ.

Updated

You can read opinions about Apple's iPad elsewhere. Here I ask if it is the eBook reader to lead the way from print to a brighter, possibly greener, maybe paperless digital future.

It's a serious contender and likely to displace Amazon's Kindle from pole position. While the iPad in its current form is still short of ideal, it nudges ebooks nearer the goal.

Of course, this barely matters. Consumers will buy the device regardless of its suitability as an ebook reader. So the iPad could be the breakthrough ebook. My comments relate only to Apple's iPad as an ebook reader.

How I rate the iPad as an eBook reader:

Its size is about right. The iPad is lightweight, slim and big enough for comfortable reading.

I've some doubts over the way Apple will sell ebooks – in my view the company clips the ticket too hard. Publishers will feel they have little choice but to conform. It's an ironic lock-in given Apple's historic market strategy of being the anti-Big Brother computer maker.

Ten hours battery life is at the low-end of acceptability. It may handle a long-distance flight, but other readers do better.

At 9.7 inches, the display size is right. Colour is good. The screen resolution at 1024-by-768-pixel is less than ideal for long-term text reading - I've seen reports of either 100 or 115 dots per inch (dpi). I'm indebted to Bruce Hoult (@brucehoult) who twitters a simple calculation sqrt(1024^2+768^)/9.7 shows it's 132 DPI.

While this is way better than the 72 dpi on a standard PC display, it's going to mean tired eyes. Likewise the LED-backlit display is less than ideal.

Apple's price is respectable for a multi-function device able to handle many applications, but at US$499 plus, it's a hefty tag for an eBook reader.

My first impression is it needs a lower price, better display and improved battery life if the iPad is to become a serious threat to the printed book – these are all matters Apple may address in coming months.

Scorecard (out of ten):

Finally

These opinions are based on media reports – I haven't yet touched the device.