New York Post denies access to site for iPad users

The New York Post has implemented a new way of boost downloads to their new iPad app. All iPad traffic accessing their website is being directed to a page instructing them to download their iPad app. No other access via iPad is allowed.

Jim Romenesko quotes internet guru Dave Winer:

Okay this is bad. This is breaking the web. If no one used the iPad it wouldn’t matter. But lots of people use it.
I wonder how Apple feels about this? I can’t imagine they like it. I can see the ads now. “Get an Android tablet to read the web.” …
Stop the madness now! Please.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that CBS’ 60 Minutes website does the same thing. You can’t read their stories on an iPad – they insist you download their app.

10 thoughts on “New York Post denies access to site for iPad users

  1. As much as I love my ipad, Apple is gradually driving me away with things like this. Most ipad versions of sites I like to visit (like The Daily Cartoonist) have a terribly dysfunctional layout compared to the regular web version.

    Another problem I have is with Apple’s “Location” services collection of all my personal data. I have this function disabled currently on my ipad and cannot upgrade to the newest OS without agreeing to have the dam thing turned on all the time.

    I may have misread the terms of service, but it looked to me as though Apple will not let me use my ipad with the new OS without agreeing to share all sorts of personal information about my web browsing.

    The main reason I am not on Facebook has to do with similar data mining issues. I know I am in the minority but this stuff is all just too Orwellian for me.

  2. The content on the web is free, but the iPad app is not a free download, and the app requires a subscription to keep it active.

    I don’t know whether the app also has in-app advertising, but I’m unwilling to spend any money or time experimenting with it. I’ve never bothered reading the NY Post before now. I’m not about to start under these conditions.

  3. Anne, I know you’re frustrated with the crappy layouts and this goofy ‘buy our app or no service for you’ stuff but it’s not Apple doing this, it’s the websites. Apple doesn’t have control over any of that and, likely as not, every other product like the iPad has the same issues or will in the future.

    From what I’ve read every smart phone actually has those same location services because the gov pretty much demanded it. Apple just sort of let people know where other companies are kinda trying to keep it under wraps. Basically all the new tech is designed to just eat up and store our info anymore ><

    That said, it's still terrible and I think it's really awful that the NYP is forcing people on pads to pay a subscription fee when they can read it all online for free. I honestly don't know what they're thinking and I'm going to stick with my laptop where I don't have these sorts of stupid issues..at least not as much anyway

  4. Anne, I have the latest iOS on my iPad, and I can turn Location Services off or on globally, or even select individual apps to turn LS on or off. I only have one of them turned on, and that’s a clock app. It may be turned on by default, I don’t remember. But it’s easy enough to turn off. I do notice that Safari is not one of the apps that has that control, but I don’t know if it uses LS.

    The latest iOS update also gets rid of the bug that caused Location Services to cache location information. It now deletes it periodically like it’s supposed to. Besides, that information was only cached on the device and not sent to Apple. I prefer to be in undisclosed locations myself.

    I’m also one of those who prefers the web version to the app in most cases. Some are okay, but most are too stripped down or don’t work as smoothly (I think, in the latter case, because they try to include too much eye candy because it’s on an iPad).

  5. Rick,

    Thanks for the explanation. I may consider updating but I have to admit that for the last 3 years I have felt as though, Apple, Google, Facebook etc. have all been trying to herd me in directions I don’t care to go – as if they are some sort of techno Border Collies. And I don’t take well to being treated like a sheep. I guess I’m a little more like an old mule πŸ™‚

  6. Anne,

    Thanks for introducing the term “techno border collies” into my lexicon.

    As much as I am an Apple sheep in terms of almost always buying whatever they are selling, I too feel like an old mule sometimes with respect to how they are increasingly insisting on controlling the manner in which I am “allowed” to use the devices. My iPad and my iPhone are some amazing pieces of tech, but my old Macbook and iPod Classic were much more versatile devices that let me do things how I want to, not how Steve wants me to.

  7. There is a a backlash that is starting to happen. The Financial Times in London has pulled all its apps and has introduced a new web-delivered iPad optimised site that sidesteps Apple and it’s controlling ways completely.

    Agreed – the mobile versions of the websites tend to be too stripped down for my taste. GoComics gives you the option of either viewing the strips in device-optimised or standard desktop flavours, but I can’t see the comments on either version on my iPod touch.

  8. Sorry folks, I do not believe that the post and others are not complicit with apple on this. The apple is rotten and I will no longer polish it. I am going way back to sanity with windows.

  9. I guess I’m still missing the point of the tablets for personal use, when a little netbook does more, and has a real keyboard too. I can see where tablets might replace magazines in places like waiting rooms, but if I have to carry something beyond a smartphone, it better do a lot more than the smartphone. To me, tablets look like a big smartphone, without the phone.

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