The NY Times & HTML5: "This Is A First Step."
I felt a tiny burst of joy on my morning commute today when I read that the New York Times was going to launch an HTML5 version of its digital edition. Then I had a cow when I discovered that it was iPad only. I Tweeted disapproval with my usual reserve: I also wrote to the Times , which quickly responded: "We wanted to test the Web App among a highly engaged audience of NYT subscribers, which made the iPad a natural choice," spokeswoman Linda Zebian wrote back. "This is the first step, but the HTML5 format does allow us to explore the idea of launching Web-based apps other platforms in the future." Indeed it does. The question is, why wait and do even a tiny bit of damage to your street cred as a leader in the digital arena? And invite unfavorable comparison (as I did) to the Financial Times, whose HTML5 app works great on both the iPad/Safari and Nexus 7/Chrome/Jelly Bean? @OttoBerks had a thought: This makes sense, and hews to the Times'...