Thanks for the mini-review, sounds like they do deliver a better experience than the Web counterpart. What about links? say to comment on an article from a blog post, or following a link from another site to the NYT? I guess you still need the Web/HTML version for that.
Any reason why it can't be the same experience over a Web browser? Nothing wrong to try and sell subscriptions based on an enhanced experience, just that personally the NYT isn't worth $150+/yr.
Links: The NYT is pretty schizophrenic about links - most of the time they'll link to their own information on a link (ala Wikipedia, but nowhere near as useful), sometimes they'll link to an external resource (Marketwatch for companies), sometimes they'll actually link to the site under review (wolfram alpha) - all of them, of course, require internet access + your browser.
The good news is that all of these links are somehow maintained in the "Time Reader" version of the article - I have no idea how they accomplish that. Makes me think that the paper version is now a _derivative_ of some primary electronic version. Interesting.
Re: Same Experience in Web Browser - After I used Google Maps, I realized that Javascript can do pretty much anything, so I have to believe if someone really, really wanted to, they could create an application that would simulate the "Times Reader" in a browser. I'm guessing that the design team that did this for the NYT probably looked at the toolsets that were available, and that they knew, and just decided that AIR would be the fastest, easiest, and provide the best user experience. I'm guessing here.
Any reason why it can't be the same experience over a Web browser? Nothing wrong to try and sell subscriptions based on an enhanced experience, just that personally the NYT isn't worth $150+/yr.