Steve Jobs while presenting the iPad in San Fr...

Steve Jobs while presenting the iPad in San Francisco 27th January 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apple’s iPad could make it the king of old media, arbiter of taste and technology alike. So magazines and newspapers have begun a series of countermoves that could turn the quietest dogfight in media into the most vicious.

In one sense, the iPad‘s January unveiling was a nerd climax, a landmark for obsessive gadget freaks. But in another it was one in a series of Apple chess movies that will determine how much influence the company wields over the future of magazines and newspapers. If the tablet device and Apple’s associated online shops become popular enough, the company could have a chokehold over publishing technology and content itself. It could become as central to the future of print media as it has become to the future of music, where Apple’s iTunes Store dominates online sales. And it could use that position to promote its preferred technologies over those of rivals, most notably Adobe’s Flash animation software, now ubiquitous on websites.

But Apple is but one player in this game; old media are making moves of their own. Apple’s refusal to work with Adobe, whose software is central to most art departments, makes publishers uneasy.

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