May 20th, 2008

Silverlight version of New York Times reader for Macs

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:18 pm

Categories: Microsoft, New York Times Reader, Silverlight

Tags: Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Silverlight, Version, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, New York Times Co., Microsoft Windows, Desktops, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware

The WPF-based New York Times reader is one of my favorite RIAs out there. I wrote a long post about it when it first came out praising the added interactivity and for making reading the newspaper a lot more interesting. I also think it does a good job of showing off WPF, and it was one of the first really good showcase apps for Microsoft’s next gen platform.

So when I heard that they were working on a Silverlight-based Mac version (more here) I was intrigued for a number of reasons. The screenshots make it look very similar to the regular WPF-based app and in some cases the post implies areas (like Search) are going to be better than the Windows version. And it’s all based on Silverlight:

We are using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology to render the pages on the Mac version. Silverlight includes a subset of the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) tools we use on the PC version. This allows us to keep the look and feel of the Mac version very close to the PC version and also allows us to reuse code across platforms. However, text flow and copy/paste are not currently supported through Silverlight yet will be soon.

More interesting is how they describe what goes on under the hood:

For those who are technically minded, here’s a short description of how the Mac version works. We paginate the pages for the Mac version on our servers (the Windows version does this on the PC). When you sync, we send you pages for the four window and three font sizes described above. (The Windows version flows the text to fit your window size using WPF on your PC.) Times Reader for the Mac is a native Cocoa application, which uses the Safari toolkit and Silverlight to render the pages.

This raises all kinds of questions (keep in mind, I’m an Adobe Employee). I assume they had to cut a deal with Microsoft to get a distribution like this. Is this something Microsoft will offer more companies? Silverlight and WPF have been slowing getting closer if you look at Silverlight 2’s progress but WPF has always been the better experience for creating .NET applications. In the experience world WPF is the Ferrari, Silverlight is like a Lexus, and Ajax is that Nissan Stanza that your sisters boyfriend bought for $50 in high school. (Kidding!). WPF is what helps sell Windows so it’s always been kind of against Microsoft’s best interests to truly have feature-for-feature parity with WPF (plus it seems technically crazy to try). But with the NYT reader they’re giving users a taste of that WPF experience for the first time. Sure it doesn’t have text flow, but that’s coming “soon” according to the post.

So I wonder what Mac users are going to think. It’s undoubtedly a good way to show off Silverlight, and it raises some very interesting questions for other people who want to build WPF-like apps on the Mac, but I’m very curious how close the experience is to the actual WPF reader on Vista. I think it will be interesting to see where the trend goes and how many more WPF applications end up being ported to a Silverlight/Cocao blend on the Mac.

January 16th, 2008

Times Reader SDK released

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:22 pm

Categories: Microsoft, New York Times Reader, Rich Internet Applications, WPF

Tags: Application, Financial, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, SDK, New York Times Co., Financial Accounting, Finance, Ryan Stewart

Tim Sneath announced today that Microsoft is releasing the Syndicated Client Experiences Start Kit (and they were doing so well with names like Silverlight!) which is based on the SDK that the teams used to create the New York Times Reader, one of my favorite WPF applications and rich Internet applications in general. One angle is that this will let you create your own reader applications. You have access to the code so you can customize and brand to your hearts content. But Tim points out the real value:

This reflects its potential to go beyond a news reading scenario and handle other kinds of data synchronization and display needs. For example, you could use this as the basis of a client for financial data analysis, where the application downloaded stock prices and other financial information and presented it in a rich client experience.

Part of the beauty of the New York Times reader was it’s ability to sync up data, grab the newest headlines and then give you access to them offline. All of this was wrapped in a very rich experience which I thought captured the beauty of reading the newspaper. WPF is a powerful platform and by releasing the SDK, as Tim notes, they make it easy to create data driven applications with the functionality of the New York Times Reader. That means you can concentrate on the interface, the experience and the fun parts of the application. Maybe not revolutionary but anything that makes the “boring” stuff easy is good for RIAs.

March 15th, 2007

Wow. $165 a year for the New York Times Reader?

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 2:53 pm

Categories: New York Times Reader, Rich Internet Applications, WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation

Tags:

According to the New York Times, the Reader, based on Windows Presentation Foundation that I covered when it came out, will charge based on a subscription model. The software will be free for subscribers, but for others it will cost $165 a year or $14.95 a month. I missed this yesterday, so I apologize for being late to the game, but I noticed it on Techmeme today and thought it deserved a mention.

That's a chunk of change, but I have faith they did the market research here and came up with a price they thought was viable. The comments on the blog post are a bit of a mix, some people seem okay with paying that price others are decidedly unhappy. It sounds like they're also incorporating the crossword and their TimesSelect service, so this seems to be a convergence of the online effort.

A lot of the complaints were about charging for news in an era where it seems to be free, but the people at the New York Times looked at the reader and decided it was compelling enough to charge for, and I can't blame them. I still think it's a great way to read the news; far and away better than a regular website, so why not charge a premium for that experience? It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but right now I like the direction.

February 9th, 2007

Is the New York Times going to charge for their WPF reader?

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:46 am

Categories: .NET 3.0, Microsoft, New York Times Reader, Rich Internet Applications, Windows Presentation Foundation

Tags:

Very interesting post by Staci Kramer over at paidContent. She quotes a spokeswoman at the New York Times as having this to say about the possibility of charging for the NYT reader that was built with Microsoft using Windows Presentation Foundation:

We're still working on this and haven’t announced anything at this point. There are several different approaches we’re looking at.

But Stacy also notes a comment from Arthur Sulzberger, the chairman of the New York Times Company:

'I very much believe that the experience of reading a paper can be transferred to these new devices.' Will it be free? No, Sulzberger says. If you want to read the New York Times online, you will have to pay."

 

I was one of many to cover the NYT reader and I still think it's a great application. What I find so interesting about this development is that a man like Sulzberger sees the richer interface as a value add that the company can charge for. Currently, web content from the New York Times is available with a free account, but as the world becomes more digital, the company needs to find a way to monetize their content. Part of that is advertising, but it seems that another part of it might be charging for a richer digital experience. That's a good sign for RIAs

January 2nd, 2007

Rich Internet Applications I couldn't live without

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 11:21 am

Categories: Brightcove, Fauxto, Flash, Jumpcut, New York Times Reader, Pandora, Rich Internet Applications, Wallop

Tags:

After seeing Mike Arrington's post about Web 2.0 companies he can't live without, I thought an RIA-themed version would be fun to do. I'm also very curious which RIAs you use on a daily basis, so if I missed any, leave them in the comments.

Goowy

This year I switched from Outlook to the Flash-based Goowy and I've been happy with the switch. The integration with YourMinis is great and it gives me a snapshot of my day in the form of sports scores and comics and news. The email client has gotten much better over the pas few months and while there are still some issues, having a robust email client, contact list and calendar anywhere I go has been great. If the Goowy guys release an Apollo version of the app that allows me to take my content offline, it will make me a very happy camper.

Pandora

I don't know what I would do without Pandora. I've got channels for everything from Garth Brooks to Enya and this year I'm hoping to get a Slingbox so I can use Pandora from anywhere in my apartment. Pandora is written in OpenLaszlo and makes for a great showcase application.

The New York Times Reader

I used to hate the New York Times. I hated having to register and I figured I could get my news from other places. But the Times Reader changed that. I leave it running overnight so that it can download all the news for me and then when I wake up I browse it between reading articles from Techmeme. It's been one of the more surprising RIAs that I've found myself using but it's won a spot in my morning routine which is the highest praise I can give it.

Yahoo! Maps

I know, I'm a sucker for Flash, but I've had nothing but good experiences with the new Yahoo Maps interface. It is built in Flex 1.5 and I think it's a richer experience than Google Maps. It was very, VERY slow when I was still running Flash Player 8, but with the upgrade to Flash Player 9 I haven't had any slowdowns. The traffic overlay has been very helpful and I think the integration with Yahoo Local is a big plus.

Brightcove

YouTube is great for looking at popular videos or random clips, but for regular content I always turn to Brightcove (I love the Wall Street Journal channel and the Smart Money channel). I wish that Brightcove had something like an Apollo app or a richer app that I could pop out from the website and browse through, but I do love the full screen feature that they implemented after the Flash Player supported it.

Wallop

The flash based Wallop is my social network of choice for right now and the big reason is because of the media integration (being able to listen to my networks songs is great) and the mods. The mods make it pretty easy to trick out a page and do it in a way that it doesn't totally look like a MySpace disaster (though you could be close). I think the business model is good for RIA developers because it gives them a way to create interesting content for a growing userbase. My only complaint is that it's still hard to find people. I use MySpace because it puts me in touch with old High School friends (and because everyone is on it) but I like Wallop much more - it's more free form and fun.

Wishlist and Honorable Mention

The one thing I wish I had was a richer news reader that I could take with me offline. I've succumb to Google Reader, and I really like it, but I wish I had something like the NYT reader that I could sync and take with me later on.

Two applications I like but haven't had a chance to use are Fauxto, the web based image editor, and Jumpcut, a video site which provides a very cool video editor web application. I haven't used Fauxto just because I found out about it only a week ago and I haven't used JumpCut as much because I haven't gotten into uploading video yet. The video editing suite of JumpCut is fantastic and seems to have gotten better after being bought by Yahoo. I can't wait to see what else these guys come up with.