Ever wondered why newspapers and magazines published on the Amazon Kindle rarely contain photos? I’ve downloaded several copies of The Times and The Telegraph on my Kindle, and you’re lucky if you get more than one photo in the entire newspaper. The only periodical that appears to include photos or diagrams with each article as a matter of course is the magnificent Economist.

True, the 16-level grayscale screen hardly lends itself to stunning photography, but newspapers prospered for a century or two with black-and-white photos, so it’s hardly a problem unique to the Kindle.

The answer lies buried in the terms and conditions for Kindle periodical publishers. Scroll down to the section where it reveals how the revenue for publishers is calculated and you’ll find the devil is most definitely lurking in the detail.

The amount of revenue each publisher earns for their Kindle newspaper/magazine is calculated thus:

(Price – delivery costs) x 70%

“Delivery costs?” I hear you cry. This is the wonderful world of electronic publishing: Amazon hasn’t got an army of paperboys popping the newspapers through letterboxes each morning.

It does, however, pay for “free” 3G connections in the souped-up version of the Kindle, and someone has to pay for that data. And that someone is largely (70%) the publishers, particularly those who want to include anything other than plain text in their periodicals.

Amazon charges 10p per MB for delivery of newspapers and magazines in the UK. By Amazon’s own estimates, a “typical newspaper” with 100 articles and 15 to 20 images would have a file size of between 0.5MB and 1MB – or around 10% of the overall revenue, considering most newspapers sell for 99p per day. It would be an even greater share of the publisher’s profits if users signed up for a cheaper subscription.

For a magazine like PC Pro those costs would be significantly greater. Each issue of the magazine has somewhere around 75 new reviews – each with a picture – plus dozens more articles and features. An issue of PC Pro with around 150 separate articles, and 100 photos would likely incur delivery costs of 50p-60p an issue. We can pop a magazine in the post to subscribers for significantly less than that.

What’s more, Amazon says that “delivery costs apply if we deliver content via a paid distribution method, such as over Whispernet” – which could technically include downloads made over Wi-Fi, which come at a tiny fraction of the cost of 3G distribution. We’ve asked Amazon to confirm if Wi-Fi downloads are charged or not, but the company hadn’t got back to us at the time of publication. (Update: Amazon has got in touch and confirmed that only newspapers/magazines delivered via 3G are liable for the delivery charge.)

Setting the price

Of course, people (with some justification) expect electronic publications to be cheaper than physical magazines/newspapers. But even if publishers were prepared to take a hit on the Amazon delivery costs, they have absolutely no control over how much their newspapers or magazines cost in the Kindle Store.

“Amazon.com determines the Kindle edition price,” Amazon’s T&Cs state. “Publishers will receive an email notification with the pricing details prior to launch of the publication.”

So if Amazon decides to publish PC Pro at the bargain price of £1.99 per issue, not only are we taking the hit on the delivery costs, but we’re severely under-cutting our print magazine too. (Update: And as Dennis Publishing’s chief technology officer reminds me, VAT is charged on electronic magazines, but not on paper.)

Conversely, if Amazon decides to push for maximum profit – The Economist costs £9.99 per month on The Kindle store, almost £20 more expensive over the course of 12 months than a print subscription that also gives access to the digital editions (excluding Kindle) – the publisher gets in the neck from angry customers. Check out the number of people complaining about the price of The Economist on the Amazon reviews, which average at only two stars out of five.

No wonder most newspapers and magazines have decided to play it safe with minimal images, or avoid publishing on The Kindle at all.

I love newspapers. Frequently my desk is piled so high with yellowing copies of The Times and The Guardian I simply cannot see Tim Danton sitting next to me (this, neither of us would dispute, is a good thing). In the interests of full disclosure, I even worked on newspapers for more than five years. So giving up my daily fix of newsprint-smudged fingers is a big deal for me.

Yet, for the past week I’ve done just that. I’ve stopped handing over my £1 every morning to Mr Govani in the shop next to the station, and downloaded the latest copy of The Times and The Daily Telegraph on the iPad before setting off to work, to test whether it’s really possible – desirable, even – to switch from print to screen. Here’s what I found.

THE DAILY ROUTINE

The first obstacle to reading newspapers on an iPad is that it needs a little forethought: a rare commodity in my house first thing in the morning. Instead of simply picking up my rucksack and bowling out of the door (most days remembering to shower and get dressed first), I now have to fire up the iPad and download the latest editions of the newspapers before I kiss the kids goodbye. The PC Pro iPad is Wi-Fi only, so downloading over 3G isn’t an option.

My prime concern before embarking on this test was that the newspapers wouldn’t be ready to download before I left the house at 7am each morning: the newspapers published on the Amazon Kindle, for example, aren’t guaranteed to be ready until 8:30am in some cases. Happily, new versions of both The Times and The Telegraph have been sat waiting for me to download each morning, and they only take a minute or two to download on my relatively sluggish 4Mbits/sec broadband, so they barely disrupt my dash for the door.

Annoyingly, however, it appears iPad owners are only treated to early editions of The Times, with the electronic version bearing all the hallmarks of the papers that are printed early so they have time to reach the more remote parts of the country: no late-breaking news, no manager quotes in football match reports etc. Sure, it must take some time for the The Times designers to format that content correctly for the app, but it seems odd that people buying newspapers on the street might be reading more up-to-date copy than the one I downloaded a few moments ago.

THE COMMUTER TEST

Normally I arrive at my station with five or ten minutes to spare before boarding my train, and spend those idle moments thumbing through the sport section. That’s no problem on the iPad too – the screen is plenty bright enough, even in direct sunlight, and I’ve even got a couple more minutes to soak up the match reports now that I don’t have to queue in the newsagents.

Except, that is, when it rains. While I’m entirely nonchalant at the prospect of a few spatters of rain pock-marking the paper copy of The Times, the iPad has to remain snugly tucked away in my rucksack at the slightest hint of Sussex drizzle.

There are problems at the other end of my commute, too, when I hop on the Tube. While I’m perfectly accustomed to snatching 10 minutes’ worth of reading in between someone else’s armpit on a ridiculously packed Tube train, there’s no way you can whip the iPad out and start thumbing through the columns if you haven’t got a seat. Unlike the paper or even the Kindle, it can’t be held comfortably in one hand, and the thought of dropping it as the train pulls to a sudden halt is too painful to bear.  So in terms of sheer convenience and portability, I’m afraid the paper still wins.

THE READING EXPERIENCE

The two iPad newspaper apps I’ve been testing offer a markedly different experience. The Times, with its ambitious/foolhardy (delete according to prejudice) plans to actually make people pay for the news, is by far the most impressive.

It has the look of a newspaper, and just like the paper it’s perfectly possible to thumb the pages from back to front, taking in news, business, features and finally ending on sport. You can also jump straight to the section or article you want, using the navigation bar at the foot of the page.

But this isn’t a straight, PDF facsimile of the paper on the newsstand: the content has been reformatted into a series of elegant, finger-friendly templates that genuinely make the newspaper a pleasure to read. Stories are accompanied by flickable photo galleries, interactive infographics or occasional video clips. The recipes in the Times2 section have been cleverly reformatted so that you get the description when the iPad is held in portrait mode, and the ingredients and instructions when you flip into portrait. There are interactive versions of the cryptic and concise crosswords that you can fill in with the onscreen keyboard.

The novelty may wear off, but it has genuinely made me want to spend more time reading the newspaper. Usually on the way back from work I’ll watch a DVD or play a game on my laptop; this week I’ve been flipping out the iPad and browsing features or reading columns that I’d almost certainly have ignored in the paper.

That’s not to say the reading experience is flawless. The background on The Times app is so brilliantly white it’s actually quite difficult to read for long periods of time without nuking your retinas. I’ve actually had to manually adjust the iPad brightness to delay the onset of epilepsy. It’s also prone to the odd crash, especially when you try and jump to another section using the nav bar. By contrast, my newspaper has six-nines reliability. Worst of all, not all of the content from the newspaper makes it into the iPad version, especially on a Saturday when the excellent magazine and the rest of supplements are mysteriously omitted. And there’s no Sunday newspaper whatsoever. It leaves you feeling ever-so slightly cheated.

The Telegraph app, on the other hand, is a much less ambitious affair. It’s described as “the best of” the daily and Sunday newspaper, which must be a terrific morale boost for the journalists whose stories fail to make the cut. It delivers a fair wedge of stories (between 10-20 for each of the news, sport, business and features sections) as well as the columnists and relentlessly brilliant Matt cartoon. Unlike The Times, there’s no archive of old editions – the latest content simply overwrites the old, and there’s no option to save an article for later reading.

Its front page is near identical to The Times, but far less effort has been put into the design of the articles. Every story is published on the same template, with a headline, big photo at the top, and plain text underneath.  There’s none of the joy of discovery or graphical treats that await in The Times. At least it’s toned down the searing background brightness of The Times, although The Telegraph uses a mottled background texture to dampen the glare, which reminded me of reading off an old-school touchscreen PC.

THE COST

So how much would it cost to swap the newspaper for its iPad brethren? Well, of course, you’re going to have to spend at least £429 on an iPad if you haven’t already got one, which is more than enough to buy you a year’s subscription to a newspaper on its own.

The Times iPad edition currently offers a free 30-day trial, after which it’s £9.99 for 30 days’ access, which can be bought direct from iTunes. Considering the newspaper itself costs £1 from Monday to Friday and £1.50 on Saturday, that’s a saving of at least 50% (when you take the lack of a Sunday newspaper out of the equation). It’s cheaper still if you sign up for The Times and The Sunday Times websites for £2 a week, as you get full access to the websites and the iPad edition as well.

And while I was far less impressed with The Telegraph app, it is completely free, making it stonkingly good value in my eyes.

THE VERDICT

So would I forego my daily newspaper for the iPad apps? Yes, I absolutely would.

Considering I already spend at least £7.50 a week on daily and Sunday newspapers, the fact that I could save myself £5.50 a week by signing up for a Times subscription means I’m already half-way to paying off the cost of an iPad over the course of a year.

Yes, the iPad’s not as hardy on a rainy platform or sardine-tin Tube train, but in other ways it’s far more convenient: no queue at the corner shop, no death stare when I hand the newsagent a £20 note because I’ve not got any change, not even any need to get out of bed to read the newspaper on a Saturday morning. Bliss.

But most of all, The Times app and (to a lesser extent) The Telegraph have made me want to read more. I’m actually enjoying the physical experience of digesting a newspaper – not just the journalism – for the first time in a long while. And that, for me at least, is almost priceless.

So when Amazon opened the doors on its UK Kindle Store earlier today, the first section I headed for was the newspapers.

The choice isn’t fantastic: my two favourite newspapers, The Times and The Guardian, aren’t available, but I could happily compromise on the Financial Times or The Independent.

The pricing doesn’t seem too outrageous, either.  £14 a month for The Independent and £18 for the Financial Times represents a healthy discount on the £1 and £2 per day cover price. Admittedly, you only get the plain text – no pictures, graphics or any of the fluff such as the crosswords, but I could live with that.

But just as I was preparing to unleash the credit card, I started reading the newspaper description pages. The Independent’s page says: “For your convenience, issues are automatically delivered wirelessly to your Kindle starting at 7:15am London local time.”  Ditto The Daily Telegraph. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, won’t start arriving until 8:30am (although it’s best not to read that before the pubs open, anyway). Only the FT gets out of bed at a reasonable hour, with its deliveries starting at 5am.

Why are the Kindle editions of the newspapers so tardy? I’m starting my commute by 7am most mornings. If The Independent and The Daily Mail can manage to write, sub, produce, print and distribute the physical newspapers to my local newsagent by 7am every morning, why on Earth can’t they strip out the text and send it to the Kindle by that hour?

The newspapers’ influence over elections has always been debatable, but what’s indisputable is that they’ve lost all control over this one. Not a single newspaper has thrown its weight behind the Liberal Democrats or Nick Clegg since his strong showing in last week’s leadership debate, but the party has seen an enormous swing in support.

The Liberal Democrats have dragged themselves level with the Conservatives and ahead of Labour in several polls, and the newspaper editors are incandescent. People are using their own minds, instead of doing as they’re told. Something has to be done.

Which is why today the newspaper editors have unleashed the attack dogs. The Sun ­– which has infamously flipped from Labour to Tory in the election ­– is splashing with the headline “Clegg on his face”, pointing to a row over Lib Dem donations and his alleged U-turn on the war in Afghanistan. Meanhwile, the traditional Tory press is also mired in the dirt. The Daily Telegraph has delved back into its MPs’ expenses files to dredge up a spurious story about donations being made directly to Nick Clegg’s bank account, while the ever rational Daily Mail front page screams “Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain”, in reference to a comment he made about Britain’s “misplaced sense of superiority” since the Second World War. Desperate stuff indeed.

It’s a last, frantic attempt by the newspapers to assert what’s left of their authority over the British electorate, but I’m convinced it won’t work. Today, services such as Twitter hold far more sway over the public than a front-page splash in the tabloids. Twitter lights up every time BBC’s Question Time is on, with the show often becoming a trending topic, despite the fact it’s obviously got nothing to do with the vast majority of the world.

Likewise, last week’s Twitter debate was met with thousands of running commentaries, reactions and verdicts from countless people across the country. It was literally impossible to keep up with the stream of comments carrying the #leadersdebate hashtag – they were coming so thick and fast.

What was clear, however, was that the groundswell of Twitter opinion thought Nick Clegg  had “won” the debate. (Unlike the rather questionable straw poll released by the Murdoch-backed Sky, which was almost unique in declaring Cameron an instant winner). And that Twitter verdict has been reflected in almost all of the opinion polls conducted over the past week.

I’m not suggesting the wisdom of the Twitter masses is influencing the majority of the electorate. I’m fairly sure my mum thinks a hashtag is a Class B drug. But it’s undoubtedly engaging millions of young and thirtysomething voters – the demographic that has traditionally shied away from the ballot box. I wouldn’t mind betting that the turnout at this General Election will be far higher than  any in recent memory as a result.

The balance of power in our democracy is shifting from the newspapers to the online electorate, and the editors are terrified. And so they should be.

Having fought tooth-and-nail against each other for years, the world’s embattled newspaper groups appear suddenly to be brothers-in-arms against a common enemy: Google.

Last week The Guardian led the way with a submission to the Government’s Digital Britain report, claiming that the search giant was effectively pick-pocketing its content.  “The argument has traditionally been that search engines and aggregators provide players like guardian.co.uk with traffic in return for the use of our content, and this is enough to make the relationship symbiotic and equal,” the submission stated. “However, there is a vast over-supply in the market of advertising inventory, and yields have come under severe downward pressure. As a result, the value of the traffic generated by search engines and aggregators has reduced significantly.”

That was followed up this Sunday by a rather more angry riposte in The Observer (also part of the Guardian Media Group). Columnist Henry Porter claimed newspapers were effectively being forced to give their content to Google, or face the commercial suicide of not being listed on search engines.  “Newspapers can of course remove their content but then their own advertising revenues and profiles decline,” he declared.  “In effect they are being held captive and tormented by their executioner, who has the gall to insist that the relationship is mutually beneficial.”

Meanwhile, across the pond, Rupert Murdoch told a group of cable TV executives that: “the question is, should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyright… not steal, but take. Not just them but Yahoo.”

And now Murdoch’s staff are weighing into the debate too, with Wall Street Journal and former Times editor Robert Thompson declaring: “There is no doubt that certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet.”

Naming no names, of course. Well, except one. “Google encourages promiscuity – and shamelessly so – and therefore a significant proportion of their users don’t necessarily associate that content with the creator. Therefore revenue that should be associated with the creator is not garnered.”

Are these vitriolic attacks a complete coincidence? Or have the world’s newspapers collectively decided it’s time to get tough with Google? Fetch the popcorn – this one’s going to get nasty. 

Instead of buying a static newspaper for 60p, you buy 12 hours worth of news for £2. Then you go out and do it again tomorrow. It’s quite a cool idea, especially for folk like my dad, who buy their paper in the morning, read it at lunch and then probably won’t look at the news again until they get home from work and flick ITV on.

Of course, Amazon and Sony are hoping the eBook Reader ultimately becomes the ubiquitous device for all your reading needs, whether that’s novel, comic book, magazine or newspaper. The Kindle, for example, already allows users to download their newspapers every morning – though for my money, reading a paper is nowhere near as satisfying if you can’t flourish it at the breakfast table, and use it as a shield against the outside world.

To bring my dad in again, he’ll never by an ebook Reader. He doesn’t want to download his own content, he’ll be put off by the price and he’ll never use half the features. He will, however, buy the newspaper every morning, even if over the course of his life the cost is triple that of a reader. He just likes the convenience of it, and it’s part of his routine, something which should never be dismissed in marketing.

Obviously the inclusion of the technology would result in prices going up. The E Ink copy of Esquire is going to cost $2 more than normal – but, would people be willing to be pay more for a newspaper that updates itself over the course of the day? I’d like to believe it comes down to the quality of the writing, but my dad reads the Sun, so that’s out. Ultimately, I have no idea. But it’s an experiment I’d love to see one of the nationals try.