News on the tablet
Summer 2020
We are told that, post COVID-19, many things will change for ever. I’m not certain about that, but I can confirm one permanent change that has taken place in the Webster household. We now receive our daily newspapers online, rather than on paper, and I don’t regret it at all.
The decision was rather forced on me, initially, when our newsagent gave up deliveries at the start of lockdown. I don’t blame him; it’s a pretty thankless and not very lucrative job at the best of times. This meant I had either to collect it myself each day or take drastic steps and go online. I chose the latter.
By online, what I really mean is on-tablet. You need to have an iPad or the non-Apple (Android) equivalent that can run the application (or ‘App’) that each newspaper supplies, but you need not pay a fortune. A basic Android tablet can be had for less than £100, or less than £200 if you want a bigger screen (which I recommend); iPads are more expensive (over £300) but they have very loyal followers who say they are worth the extra. I don’t think they are, if all you are doing is reading the papers on them, but each to his own. Either kind can also be bought more cheaply second hand from the likes of musicmagpie.co.uk or uk.webuy.com, and it’s well worth looking at that option.
The newspapers’ Apps also work on smartphones, which, like a warn gin and tonic, is acceptable in a crisis, but they are too small for extended reading, to my mind.
Each member of your household needs a tablet. This is because you can download the morning paper onto all of them under the terms of a single subscription – which means that my wife and I each has our own copy; no more fighting over the various sections at breakfast.
Having bitten the bullet and suffered this capital outlay, the savings are significant. The Telegraph is currently offering a year of online newspapers for £197; it’s £728 if you want it in print as well. The Times want £312 for a year online, or £780 for print copies as well. Add to that the cost of delivery, and you are rapidly heading towards £1,000 pa, just for the pleasure of having something to use to line the Guinea Pigs’ cage. The Oldie is an even bigger bargain £29.99 for twelve issues, digital only.
I must admit that I had not really noticed how expensive print newspapers had become, this sort of thing does rather creep up on you. The financial savings alone are enough to convince me to stay digital, but also my wife tells me that since starting to read her newspaper on an iPad, she has been reading far more of it than she used to, and is far more inclined to finish an article.
I should add that it’s a very different experience to reading a newspaper’s website; you really do download one day’s whole newspaper onto your tablet, organised in sections, and it stays there for as long as you wish. By comparison, their website will be different each time you look at it.
I’m a bit late to the party. Most newspapers, here and in America, have more digital than print subscribers; I suppose the writing is on the wall for print.
The only problem is the crossword. You can do it on then tablet, it is very clever technology, but after so many years of scribbling in the margins to work out anagrams and so on, I can’t get used to it. But I probably shall, in time, and in the meantime, I am hundreds of pounds better off each year, and fewer trees have been sacrificed.
A few links:
Buy an online subscription to the Oldie: https://subscribe.theoldie.co.uk/the-oldie
Press Gazette report on Times Digital subscriptions outnumbering print (2018):
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/times-and-sunday-times-hits-500000-subscribers-as-digital-outnumbers-print-for-first-time/
Press Gazette reports that Telegraph digital subscriptions outnumber print (2019): https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/telegraph-marks-huge-milestone-as-number-of-digital-subscribers-surpasses-print/
