It just now occurs to me that Marvel may have miscalculated by tieing their digital comics launch in with the launch of the iPad. What's the bigger news that day? iPad or "oh, look, Iron Man!" Of course, it seems to have fit neatly with the release of the Iron Man movie, but people are buzzing about DC's efforts as if we hadn't already seen Marvel pull this off already, and Boom! make an announcement just last week.
That said, I was discussing iPads with my boss, and I think I am waiting for the HP Slate and whatever Dell produces. Not just to be contrarian, but I like to look at YouTube and stuff.
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
I'm watching Youtube on my iPad at work right now (don't tell anyone)...
ReplyDeleteYouTube is compatible with the iPad. You won't, however, be able to play Farmville on the ipad.
ReplyDeleteI have a pretty good feeling that Farmville for iPad is on the way, seeing as Farmville for iPhone was part of the iPhone 4 announcement.
ReplyDeleteHuh. Well, I am full of all kinds of bad info. Good news about Farmville, though!
ReplyDeleteI guess that really isn't good news about Farmville. In fact, it makes me want to get off the grid altogether.
ReplyDeleteStay on the grid...if you want to check out my iPad sometime let me know.
ReplyDeleteAlso, someday we plan to return the "A&W BBQ Sauce" favor...just probably won't be until next month.
I still think Marvel made the bigger splash by launching with the iPad. Every journalist covering the iPad launch in some way discussed the Marvel app. Even though DC has made a big splash today it seems that only the comics journalists are commenting on it. That leads me to believe that Marvels announcement reached more non comic fans than DC did which can only be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteAs other commenters have mentioned YouTube works great on the iPhone/iPad and unfortunately you will soon see Farmville on the iPhone/iPad as well.
I'm still holding off for the second generation of these devices.
Thanks, Paul! Looking forward to seeing you kids.
ReplyDeleteSimon, I think that's a great point. I should also mention that at a librarians conference I attended last week one of the presenters stopped to talk about how cool Iron Man was on his iPad and mentioned "have you seen how cool comics are these days? I had no idea!".
As far as grabbing a new audience, absolutely having the Marvel feature embedded can't have hurt.
Flash isn't supported on the iPad. Youtube videos play because Google has a separate "stream" utilizing HTML 5 for Apple products. It's also done through a separate app from my understanding (I don't have an iPad).
ReplyDeleteTry and see if you can browse to youtube through Safari and play Youtube videos?
Also, the iPad may be able to play Youtube, but it won't play Hulu. Check Vimeo. Or Break.com. Or any number of Flash heavy websites. Basically, you'll need an app to get content most of the time to get around the Flash ban. Most people will provide that. Many won't.
-NTT
Yeah, the YouTube support for iPhone/iPad is through a separate app. Many other websites are taking advantage of the video tag in HTML5 which will reduce the need for Flash for video content.
ReplyDeleteMost, if not all of Vimeo is encoded in HTML5.
ReplyDeleteHulu is supposed to be arriving at somepoint, but probably will cost money. The networks that are behind it are having a hard time making money with it, and will attempt to make money by charging for content on the iPad.