back to article Murdoch predicts iPads all round

Rupert Murdoch is betting big on the iPad, claiming it heralds sales of "hundreds and hundreds of millions" for tablet computers, and a revitalised newspaper industry. His optimistic assessment was delivered as News Corp posted a net full-year profit of $2.5bn, reversing a $3.4bn loss a year earlier. TV and movies - including …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. JaitcH
    Thumb Down

    Given Murdoch's record of backing losers ...

    his predictions aren't really worth a bucket of sh*t.

    How's MySpace, Murdoch?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That was hardly a case of backing a loser

      More a case of taking control of a market leader and royally fucking it up

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Young people DO read newspapers

    Free ones. I see them every day on the way in to work, with a copy of Metro or the MEN.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    iPads?!

    I doubt it, affordable and unrestricted tablets maybe.

    Murdoch + Jobs = paying for your oxygen!!

  4. John Ridley

    Well, tablets maybe

    No iPad for me, but I'm sitting here with my credit card in hand waiting for a really nice Android tablet to hit the market. Any minute now...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why?

      I can't see the point in a tablet PC at all. You get a laptop without the ability to protect the screen and have no keyboard. So you lose a chunk of screen space when you need to type anything...I can't see how in anyway you would benefit from having a tablet.

      I've used an Ipad and think they are great gadgets but nothing more than a passing fad that will be forgotten about when the "next big thing" from apple is announced.

    2. DrXym

      Too bad you said really nice tablet

      There is already a dodgy looking iPad knockoff tablet called the Eken aPad. Ebay is full of them and they're remarkably cheap. There are also some older tablets such as the Archos 7 which are built over older versions of android.

      I expect by Christmas there will be some brand name, quality tablets in the $150-$250 range, hopefully with Android 3.0 on them.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    young people. reeeally?

    So murdoch reckons he'll be getting young people into newspapers this way? I don't think so as it's not the medium, but the content that is the problem. Currently the only people placing any value in newspapers (digital or paper versions) as a serious source of news are those in their mid thirties and older. Anyone younger than that (rightly) sees little point in paying for distorted, biased rubbish that is mostly press releases regurgitated as "news", celebrity bullshit (ooh pictures of someone on holiday!), or blatant attempts to control what the readers think, feel or buy.

    1. Chemist

      Re : young people. reeeally?

      What the hell has it got to do with age ?

      Rubbish is rubbish

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: young people. reeeally?

      Woah there Junior - I'm mid-thirties and have a perfectly functional bullshit-detector, I thankyou so much. Although I do know quite a few people who take the TV news as absolute gospel and scream "tinfoil hat" like trained baboons at anyone daring question the word.

      Ok, maybe you're right. Shit.

  6. Z 1
    Grenade

    Don't read newspapers

    Times? Telegraph? Guardian? No time for those penny dreadfuls.

  7. myhandle
    Happy

    Hammers

    There's a guy with a hammer looking for nails.

  8. Naughtyhorse

    nothing to see here

    just a bit of wishful thinking from a dinosaur on it's last legs

  9. Marcus Aurelius
    FAIL

    Sign of the Times

    I normally pick up a serious paper two to three times a week, but I haven't picked up a Times since it went behind the paywall.

  10. DrXym

    Gamechanger? Nope

    Perhaps Murdoch hasn't noticed but even a golden cage like the iPad contains a web browser. If I want to look at news from an iPad there are hundreds of news outlets, news aggregators, blogs etc. to get it from. If you want your news in "app" form, there are plenty of RSS style readers to do that too, some of them run by rival newspapers.

    So boo hoo The Times is behind a paywall, who cares. I guess people will just patronize free newspapers instead, clicking on their ads and so on.

  11. Yorkshirepudding
    Troll

    Im rupert murdoch! the billionaire tyrant

    that is all

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: "Im rupert murdoch! the billionaire tyrant"

      I hope you feel better now.

  12. LinkOfHyrule
    Paris Hilton

    "We'll have young people reading newspapers."

    No you wont.

    Why would I pay to read your crap when I can get for free and legally news about stuff I'm actually interested in. Oh and I don't need half a laptop to access it either, it's all available on any device with a browser.

    I'll give you a year before that paywall comes down or the Times folds (Pun intended)

    Paris because unlike the times, she's available everywhere and to everyone too! Not sure is she is free though!

  13. Alpha Tony

    In other news...

    ...Chief turkey predicts massive sales of nut roast this Christmas.

  14. Magnus_Pym
    FAIL

    Or to translate...

    No. Wait, listen. Don't turn your backs on us.Your investments are safe in News International, You can trust me, I'm honest rupe, I wouldn't lie to you.

    Now it might look, to the casual observer, like NI is a hopelessly beached whale. The untrained observer may think that the market for gossip dressed as news is being squeezed by dedicated pictorial gossip mags on one side and almost instant internet news/opinion sources on the other both of which have more integrity in their smallest bullet point than the whole of News International put together. But listen, they are wrong the future is golden. Its all going to change and I can once again go back to telling people how to think. Its all going to change because of... err...

    ...err...

    ...ooh. I know Its because of the iPad. The iPad will surely save use, iPads can do anything. Hooray for the iPad. Where are you all going...

  15. scrubber

    Murdoch?

    I much prefer Kerry Packer.

    1. Tac Eht Xilef

      Kerry!

      Well, yes, don't we all?

      It's partly because of his remarkable fact-based uncyclopedia entry. But mostly, we prefer him because he's dead.

  16. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Take me to your Leader is an Odd Request of National, International and Internetional Beings

    "The broader News Corp effort to convince web users to start paying for more general news - spearheaded in the UK by the Times and Sunday Times - is meanwhile "going well", Murdoch said."

    The trick that Mr Rupert Murdoch and News Corp are constantly avoiding, and is causing them all of their business problems, is that the news that they sell, leading no one nowhere.

    Share news for free which leads and riches are automatically generated and directed to drivers by SysAdmin. Does News Corp not have contact with World leaders?

  17. Chris Fleming

    Thank God for Newspapers

    Buy one 6 days a week. Crossword, comics and classified. Usefull for wrapping the food scraps up in as well, but not a great subtitute for bog paper.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like