Can Steve Jobs Save Newspapers?

With the widely expected announcement of the Apple tablet tomorrow, thousands of theories have flooded the internet as to what the device will look like, what it will be able to do and how Apple will use partnerships with third parties to make the device a must-have for all human beings on Earth.  With talks of television subscription services and newspapers and magazines trying to create tailor made versions of their products for the tablet, Apple founder Steve Jobs has said that the tablet is “the most important thing [he's] ever done.”

So the question must come up: can Steve Jobs save newspapers the way he saved the music industry?

I remember when I was a freshman in college and discovered the most amazing technological invention of my lifetime: Napster.  With a few simple clicks you could steal practically any song ever recorded.  While Napster was eventually broken down to nothing, there were still plenty of places to go to download pirated music.  Sure, some of these programs still exist, but iTunes has changed the way that we obtain music: we buy it again.

With the Apple tablet, Jobs will try to do the same thing for newspapers.  Obviously there is a major difference between how Napster allowed us to steal music versus media companies that made their writings available for free (hoping the advertising on their sites would supplement the costs).  However, both industries came to a breaking point and the music industry was able to succeed.  Newspapers looked dead, until now.

The New York Times is apparently already working at Apple headquarters developing ways to make the paper more interactive and worthy of charging for a non-print edition.  The dream scenario for Apple is that you would own an Apple tablet, buy a digital subscription to the Times on iTunes, download the day’s newspaper when you update your tablet through iTunes and regain the feeling that newspapers are something to be purchased, not to be read online for free.

Can it work?  After seeing what happened to the music industry, I see no reason why not.