A school in New Zealand has made this mandatory for all students. I welcome the change, however many parents won't be able to afford the gadgets. I hope that schools will allow the use of lower-spec, cheaper tablets as well.
- A small summation at the top perhaps? The website is lengthy, so perhaps adding something to hook people in quickly would be good. Even "After he blah-blahed at blah-blah Miles decided he needed to blah-blah. He could work for you!"
Although I'm sure you could think of something better. :)
At the moment Apple have cornered a market based on their (Steve's) company policies. Eventually "Apple Fever" will wear off and another company will produce something so amazingly worth spending $600 on.
This however, is the same as any company's stock history. My argument is that the future of AAPL isn't in mobile devices (exactly) but in producing parts for it. It may be comparable to Intel sometime soon.
Sadly, in a world where the gaming industry has become more profitable than the film and music industry combined, this has become the nature of things. I'm going to a gamification seminar tonight that I'm expecting to be the same. Phooey.
In your example HN has 23 links visible on the page (without scrolling), while Reddit has 10 links. Greater quantity of information over visual aesthetic appeals to the hacker market.
The question is what will this newspaper do that HN doesn't. Perhaps an approach would be creating a friendly and attention grabbing wrapper for HN, one that shows "trending" stories and popular comments to greater effect. Positioning questions and showcases in their own spot to maximise interest.
Also bear in mind who you're making this for. The developer mindset may require page efficiency (size of text, number of features), while designers may value page effectiveness (pictures, layout).
I'm optimistic that most of these hacker groups are willing to make movements against human rights issues that one assumes they care about. You're right though, they aren't the ones who will suffer from it.
I'm hugely impressed by Spill. Many Universities spend plenty of money on emotional and psychological support for students (mine employs many full-time counselors and a variety of other in-person services) and still have dramatic suicide and drop-out rates. This system can unify those services and targets them through a familiar social network-style channel. I hope this is implemented as widely as possible.
Function/app integration into the Apple OS' is a logical next step for the company, and if anyone was going to do it, it would be Apple. They destroyed a section of the market to do it, but that was a market already under control of the company anyway. No one should be surprised by a dictator flexing his muscles.
Also, stifling creativity makes everyone lose. The title should be "Apple: users lose, industry loses".