Time Inc.

Time Life: The last digital holdout

Get your box set via P.O. Box! With dusty product offerings, outdated formats, and an aging demographic, the privately-owned company has nowhere to go but the selling block.

If you're up at night channel-surfing around the tube, you'll still see them: half-hour infomercials of softly-lit couples, hand-in-hand, running on the beach, or peppy teens in varsity jackets pulling into a drive-in, peddling 10-disc compilations like "Malt Shop Memories," "Flower Power," or MORE

Briefs: Steve Jobs' folly, Apple's ads

A round-up of the week's Apple news

Jackling Mansion coming down: Preservationists who had fought for six years to prevent Steve Jobs from razing a 14-bedroom Spanish colonial mansion he bought in 1984 but never really liked have finally thrown in the towel. Under a plan approved by the city council of Woodside, Calif., last summer, a wealthy Silicon Valley investor -- Gordon Smythe, founder of Propel Partners -- MORE

Time Inc. breaks the iPad logjam

This week's People app is free to subscribers. Time, SI and Fortune are expected to follow

There's more to the iPad issue of People that appeared on the Apple (AAPL) App Store this morning than Sandra Bullock's new joy.

This People app may also signal the end of a four-and-a-half-month impasse that put the digital dreams of every major magazine publisher on hold.

Until now, the iPad versions of People, Time, Sports Illustrated MORE

Trouble in Apple's iBookstore

Negotiations with publishers reach an impasse over who controls subscriber lists

A report in Monday's Financial Times confirms early accounts of a sticking point that emerged during Steve Jobs' off-the-record meetings with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Time Inc. the week after the iPad was unveiled.

According to the FT, Apple's (AAPL) reluctance to share subscription information is "pretty damn close" to a dealbreaker for publishers who were hoping MORE

The myth of the free Apple iPad

Can Steve Jobs' tablet do for magazines what the sneaker phone did for Sports Illustrated?

Joe Zeff, who ran Time Magazine's graphics department for a few years while I was there, is getting some attention for an idea he floated on his new Design Blog: publishers, he suggests, should lure readers to their struggling magazines by giving away free Apple (AAPL) iPads in return for paid subscriptions.

It's a variation on MORE

Apple tablet rumor round-up

Days before its expected unveiling, details of dubious provenance are pouring in

With Apple (AAPL) set to reveal its "latest creation" Wednesday, new rumors surface almost hourly. We'll try to stay on top of them. [UPDATED Tuesday. See below.]

The rendering at right created by Flickr user Fotoboer.nl last August is "strikingly close" to the real thing, people "familiar with the device" tell AppleInsider's Kasper Jade.
Apple is building two versions, one that MORE

Apple tablet: The video previews

When the real thing arrives, will it be as good as the YouTube versions?

If reality catches up with rumor, Steve Jobs will give one of the great demos of his life next Wednesday at Apple's (AAPL) invitation-only "latest creation" event in San Francisco.

But you don't have to wait until Jan. 27 to get a taste of what he might be showing.

For months, Apple has been secretly meeting with developers, advertisers MORE