The New York Times launched a new version of its iPhone app last week, in advance of the launch of a new paywall which would only allow readers to view 20 articles per month for free on the web, or the the Top News sections for free on a mobile device. I kind of wondered what would happen if you didn’t upgrade to the new app, so when the newspaper company pushed out an updated version of its Android app this weekend I decided not to update.

Now that the paywall is in full effect, I fired up the mobile app and got a warning saying that an upgrade is required. There’s a friendly “Remind Me Later” button, so I tapped that to see if I could keep reading anyway. The answer is yes… if I’m cool with reading yesterday’s news. The old version of the app simply won’t grab any new articles from NYTimes.com. The ads at the bottom of the screen are also going crazy, refreshing about 2-3 times per second.

So the long and short of it is that while there are a number of ways to avoid paying to read The New York Times, using an outdated version of the company’s mobile app is not one of them.

Oh, and it should go without saying, but if you want to support the newspaper, you might actually want to think about paying for a digital or print subscription. Good news doesn’t come cheap. If, on the other hand, you’re not a fan of the way the company is going about its new subscription plans, then there are plenty of other news sources on the web. But subscription-based news apps may be an important part of the future of journalism.

Update: While the older Android app has stopped working, it looks like users with the older iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad app can continue to download and read the latest news stories… for now.

There’s a rumor going around suggesting that Rupert Murdoch (News Corp) and Steve Jobs (Apple) are working together to launch a new tablet-only newspaper… without the paper. The Daily would be available exclusively on the iPad at launch, and possibly on other tablet style computers in the future. The publication would not have print or web editions, meaning the format would be designed exclusively for tablet displays.

I like that idea. What I’m wondering though, is whether the business model makes a lot of sense. News Corp reportedly plans to charge $0.99 per week for subscriptions. While $0.99 is clearly the sweet spot for apps, with millions of users paying that much for Angry Birds and other games, are people ready to pay that much every week to read the news?

On the one hand, that’s a bargain by old school newspaper standards, as it should be since there are virtually no printing or distribution costs involved.

On the other hand, there’s so much news available for free using other apps (or a web browser), that I have to wonder whether people are willing to pay for access. The fact that articles in The Daily won’t be available anywhere else will definitely help make the case for paying up — but only if the publication can produce insights or news items that you won’t find anywhere else for free.

Of course, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are already behind paywalls to varying degrees, so it’s possible that the era of free, ad-supported news online might be coming to an end, in which case users might not have much alternative but to pay up for subscriptions… or resort to other types of media for their news.

What do you think? Would you pay $0.99 per week for The Daily? What if your current favorite started charging a buck a week?

The New York Times has released an official news app for Google Android. At first glance, the app looks like a clone of the newspaper’s iPhone app. Both allow you to sort news by category (World, US, Politics, N, Travel, Magazine, Latest, and so on). And both apps are much faster and easier to navigate on a mobile device than the New York Times web site.

But the Android app has a few features that set it apart from the iPhone version. The first is a “Latest Videos” section, which lets you see the latest videos from the New York Times web site and read a brief description. If you tap on a video, it will open up in the Android media player. The iPhone app doesn’t have a video section. Interestingly though, the iPhone app has a Popular section, which is missing from the Android version.

Scan to download

The New York Times App for Android also makes use of Google’s navigation scheme for Android. For instance, I find it much easier to hit the back button to return to the previous menu in the Android version of the app than to use the button at the top of each page in the iPhone version. On the down side, if you tap the back button one too many times, you might find yourself back at the Android home screen.

For some strange reason, the developers also decided to use a drop-down menu as part of the navigation. Hanging out in the “Latest News” section, and want to check the obituaries? Grab the top of the window and pull down to get a list of all available sections. The confusing thing is the top of the window looks a lot like the Android notification bar… and it’s awfully close to it.

I’ve already found myself accidentally opening the Android notification menu when I meant to pull down the category list in the New York Times app. This UI element also takes up more space than it really needs to — especially since you can bring up the same list by hitting the Menu button on an Android phone and selecting “Sections.” That said, the app is without a doubt the best way to access New York Times content on an Android device.

The New York Times app for Android is available as a free, ad-supported download for Android 2.0 and up. It’s available from the Android Market, or you can scan the barcode to the right to get started.

via Android Community