Mobile news apps and pay-for-news model

About a year ago I installed the AP Mobile iPhone app and was using it quite extensively to access news. Then they “upgraded” the app with new “features” and it now takes at least 30 seconds, sometimes 1 minute or more, to load the app and the initial news page. That’s just insane and a non-starter (pun intended) for me.

I tried out Bloomberg too but their news is even more market-centric than the WSJ and didn’t fill my news need adequately.

I then switched over the the WSJ application. These guys have the mobile news viewing experience down to an art. Sure it still has an ad and is still market-news heavy, but the app loads very quickly and the interface is intuitive (the navigation bar disappears when you start scrolling the article freeing up the entire screen, sans ad, for the text). Unfortunately in January the WSJ is going to start charging $2/week to access their mobile news apps. $2/week? Are you kidding me? I’d pay for $2/month or maybe even $4/month but $8/month is not worth it. Apparently I’m not alone in this view.

I realize that journalists need to get paid, but I think the WSJ is pricing themselves out of the mobile market. Granted, perhaps I’m not their target audience and they’ll do just fine. January I’ll either go back to AP Mobile, Bloomberg, or just go straight to some still-free news websites.