Gruner + Jahr Endorses WePad Over iPad [Europe's Largest Book Publisher Favors WePad vs. iPad, Dislikes Apple's Regulation Of App Market And Closed System]

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Gruner + Jahr is Europe’s largest publishing house, and they prefer German engineering to Cupertino’s. At G+J’s annual press event last week, CEO Bernd Buchholz showed off the WePad, which was the first big public exposure that the German tablet received. The WePad is being billed as the “first German-born tablet computer” and G+J is betting heavily on the tablet.

While American publishers are still rushing to get iPad versions of their publications finished in time for the big launch this weekend, G+J already has their WePad versions of their publications running. Stern, the big German news magazine, was on display as a finished WePad app. Unlike the iPad, the WePad offers Flash and G+J promised that their magazine apps will also be interwoven with the magazine’s respective website (all due respect to the iPad, we haven’t seen how their magazine apps will work, they could have interoperability with the web too). G+J is also preparing WePad versions of their other popular magazines, Geo and Gala.

G+J has had their problems with Apple. Apple removed the iPhone version of their Stern magazine app unexpectedly from the App Store because of the nudity featured inside. Of course, female nudity is nothing new to European magazines and newspapers – but Apple doesn’t see it that way. G+J complained to Apple and the German Magazine Publishers association (VDZ) warned that further dependence on Apple was moving towards censorship.

Buchholz went on the offense at Apple. During the press event where he showed off the WePad, he said that G+J would “insist on our sovereignty of products and contents.” He went to say that Apple’s strict iPhone/iPad pricing scheme was out of control and that they needed to “get in charge of it”. As TechCrunch Europe pointed out, the iPhone version of German newsmagazine Der Spiegel is more expensive than the print edition. As commentators here at TFTS pointed out, the iPad version of the American newspaper Wall Street Journal will be more expensive than the print edition.

G+J is apparently teaming up with WePad manufacturers Neofonie on the device. They’ve licensed certain rights to Neofonie’s ePaper technology and they’re contacting other German publishers to get their support behind the WePad. Any opinions about the iPad vs. WePad, it’s clear that G+J is unhappy with Apple’s control over iPad content and they’re putting all their weight behind the German-born WePad.

An interesting (and unreported) note – Random House is the only of the “Big Six” book publishers who hasn’t signed a deal to put their books on the iPad, citing Apple’s control over the book store. Random House is owned by Bertelsmann, and Bertelsmann also owns a majority stake in G+J. Definitely not a coincidence.

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