What I have learned from iPhone applications

My boss gave me an iTouch for Christmas and I absolutely love it. And I am not alone. There have been almost 1 billion downloads of i-applications since the launch of the system in July 2008, and more than 35,000 applications have been created (see here) Aside from the joy of using it, I have learned a great deal from the way the system works.

It is the best example I can think of for what I call the easy principle: the easier you make something the more likely it is that people will do it. The quicker and easier you make it for people to buy, the more they will buy. It is just so easy to buy an i-app, just a couple of clicks and $2 is debited from your credit card. Easy.

The easy principle encourages impulse buying. I was with someone the other day who all of a sudden wanted to record the sound of waves onto her iPhone. She thought it would make a fun alarm to wake up to. There and then she found a recording app, bought it, and made a recording, all in a few minutes. Easy.

There is no try-before-you-buy for i-apps, although some do offer Lite versions, so i find myself relying on the reviews and stars to guide me as to the value of an i-app that I am considering downloading. Interestingly if you delete a Lite version it will often ask you to rate the application just before you remove it. Easy.

So far so cool, but what could it mean for publishers?

Consider this scenario:

Suppose journal articles were available for download to a handheld device with a similar easy payment system. I am in the train on my way to the university, browsing my alerts that I have set up to keep me posted on publications in my field of research. I see something that looks interesting. Before I decide to purchase the article, I read the reviews from other scientists. Is it worth downloading? I decide that it is and go ahead. While reading the article there are links out to other articles. On an impulse I follow a few and download some more articles that look interesting. By the time I reach the university I have a small library in my hand.

Is the death of DRM the indicator of real change in the publishing business?

I have been thinking about the future of publishing. It seems to me that above all else DRM represents the old, traditional mindset of publishing. In this mindset it is all about the content. And if content is the asset, it makes perfect sense to protect it with DRM. Let's turn this around, if content is not the asset but something else is instead, then it makes no sense to protect the content with DRM right? By DRM here I mean everything from a simple license enforcing copyright to multi-layered encryption. Rights protection in its broadest sense.

The new mindset is that it is all about what the content does or what it allows you to do. It is about delivering the content in multiple ways, at different times to all sorts of people. It is about embedding content in devices that do something. In other words, the asset is in the use of the content. No DRM needed here.

My theory would indicate that as publishers move from the old to the new mindset, DRM should disappear. At the very least we should see a struggle around DRM as the old guard and the new wave fight it out.

There is perhaps some evidence for this theory. Apple will remove DRM on iTunes on April 7th. There was a huge row recently over the Kindle text-to-voice capability .

Does anyone have more evidence? Examples of publishers moving away from DRM, easing the rights protection, choosing creative commons over copyright? Please let me know.

So what is holding back publishers you might ask? Well I suspect most of them have simply been unable to build products that would allow them to release control over their content. Workflow solutions is the buzzword I hear most often and everyone claims to be doing it. I have seen very few examples from any publisher though.

My gut feeling is that Apple are showing us the way. They have shown us how important the device is. As Chris Arkenberg noted today: "Apple has fundamentally rewritten this paradigm by dematerializing the content - music & movies - and connected it directly with the player".

My top tip for today is to watch any publisher that is partnering with device providers or any publisher that is experimenting with i-apps. I think this is the future.