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Apple iBook app for sales of books for iPadThe highly-anticipated Apple iPad, the touch-screen "slate" computer that saw it's U.S. launch Saturday, appears to have also generated some backlash.

The New York Times carried a report this weekend on the life cycle analysis and the environmental impact of the iPad and other e-readers.

"With respect to fossil fuels, water use and mineral consumption," say authors

Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris, "the impact of one e-reader payback equals roughly 40 to 50 books. When it comes to global warming, though, it's 100 books; with human health consequences, it's somewhere in between."

Environmental group Greenpeace expressed concern that the proliferation of cloud computing and online reading services could have increased environmental impact over traditional media.  And magazine publishers, for whom precise circulation data provides critical sales leverage, have been hesitant to place subscription sales broadly through the iTunes store, hoping instead to sell the iPad-compatible subscriptions directly to consumers.

A consortium of the five largest magazine publishers agreed weeks before the iPad launched to establish their own online retailing and a standard for generating file formats for the iPad and other touch-screen computers likely to appear, such as HP and Microsoft slate computers. A lone holdout from the iBook store among the top U.S. book publishers is Random House, which has declined to sell its titles through the Apple iBook application, though its five biggest competitors have.

Among newspapers, the Wall St. Journal was among the first 1,000 applications for the iPad. The World Editors Forum, the organization for newspapers editors within WAN-IFRA, is presenting a series of  "How-to" webinars on "iPad and tablets: how newspapers can make the most out of a new platform". The next one-hour online sessions will see Jeff Litvack, GM of mobile and emerging products for The Associated Press, on Tuesday, April 13. 

Bill Esler, Editor in Chief -- Graphic Arts Online, April 5, 2010