Another translated letter from The Age to The Readers about The iPad App from The Age

Several months ago, launched to great fanfare, The Age released one of the worst iPad apps I’ve ever used. The editor-in-chief, Paul Ramadge, took the time to write us readers a letter, which I translated into Englishfor your reading pleasure. And apologies to John Gruber.

Well, with the launch of the new-and-improved iPad app (bizarrely, the old one is still available), he’s gone and written another letter. While the new app is head-and-shoulders better than the last one, the letter still shows how out of touch Fairfax management is, and therefore needs a certain amount of translation.

The Age has built its reputation on the quality of its stories, from the hard-hitting to the personal, often about power, people, politics, passions and pursuits.

And pyjamas, pomegranates, pinto beans, Prahran, poxy celebrities, Puff the Magic Dragon…

We’ve been working hard at this since 1854.

We’re an old newspaper! We’re an old newspaper! We deserve to keep living because of this!

In more recent years, new windows – such as websites and smartphone apps – have opened to tell these stories.

We’re still planning to do the exact same thing we always have done, but without the paper. That’ll work, for sure!

Then, five months ago, The Age launched a digital edition on the Apple iPad.

Oddly enough, nobody bought it. The iPad sucks.

It looks exactly like the print edition

That was the good part.

except the user can zoom in and zoom out,

Just like bringing the print edition closer and farther away from your eyes.

email stories to friends,

Just like the website. Or so I’ve heard.

and flick between sections with a click or two.

I’ll start using this iPad just as soon as I can figure out where to plug in the mouse.

On the back of such innovations, more people are reading The Age than ever before.

But no one is using the old iPad app.

Now – in another example of just how quickly media consumption and media technology are moving

Enough people complained about the old app that we fired the people who made it and paid lots of money to another company (who are actually competent) to make a brand new one from scratch in four months.

we are unveiling our new iPad app, which is truly exceptional in its content and creativity.

We looked at what the ABC have been doing for years and this one-year-old Flipboard app, and made one of our own.

With the app, it’s as if our stories have magically moved from monochrome to 3D high-definition colour.

I’ve never seen our website.

A photograph in the paper becomes a picture gallery or a video.

Just like on the website.

A graphic becomes an interactive experience, with moving parts and moving images.

The tech guys were talking about flashing or something. I told them that they shouldn’t do that at the office, and they said that was the point.

Special investigations can be told as mini-documentaries.

I don’t even know what that means myself.

You can:

Make bulleted lists, which is yet another crutch from the PowerPoint-soaked modern world. Ah, how I yearn for the florid prose of yesteryear.

• Set up alerts to track stories.> > > > > • Save articles to read later.• Share stories via email, Facebook and Twitter.

Whatever those are.

• Get access to your favourite sections including Good Weekend, Epicure, Drive, Green Guide, Life&Style, Traveller and more.• Enjoy full-screen video and stunning photo galleries.> > > > > • Access breaking news 24/7.

Which is useful, if you ignore Twitter, blogs, and citizen journalism like we do. Aljazeera is insane!

• Enjoy the must-read stories of the day with Editor’s Choice.> > > > > • View live sports scores, results and fixtures.

Oh, sorry, I meant “live”, not live.

• Get stock quotes on ASX-listed companies.

We just threw that one in for shits and giggles.

• Comment on articles.

Just like the website, or so I’m told.

And many other things that matter in today’s fast world are there too.

Like ads! Yay ads! Big, full-screen ads that don’t have an obvious way to close them! We have to monitise our content somehow, baby! Ads are important in today’s fast world. And since the app knows your location, we can sell location-based ads! Telstra loves this! I’m frothing at the mouth!

The app will also feature breaking news, making it the first site to bring together the deep, analytical content of print and the fast, quick updates of digital.

Much of this letter was photocopied from the letter we used when we launched the website. All we had to do was change some of the words! Sometimes we slip up and leave “site” in there, just to see if people are actually reading this article anymore. Kids these days just skim articles, so things like grammar, accuracy and all that mysterious stuff sub-editors do isn’t really all that important anymore.

The app is the best of all worlds. You can flick between reading a highly informative piece of contextual reporting or commentary and getting the latest news.

Stop making fun of me. I said “flick”, not “click”.

The app is quite unlike any other medium, or any other app on the market.

Except the Washington Post, the ABC, Al-Jazeera, Flipboard, even Virgin Project…

It brings world-best technology to Melbourne – to anyone, anywhere.

I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Welcome to the next chapter in The Age’s history. It is exciting. Please enjoy this new reading experience,

The last chapter wasn’t all that successful, so we’re closing the book on that one, and as we turn the page into a new print-metaphor-based world. we hope this isn’t our epilogue, but rather the author’s note in the inner front dust cover of the next precious leather-bound volume on our old and glorious shelf of stories. Stories that we tell you through the windows of our new glass building.  Stories from us, to you.

delivered by a team dedicated to making your lives richer.

(Where “your” = “shareholders”).

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