1. Apple’s 30% may seem steep compared to the web, but this is an unfair comparison considering that it is very difficult to obtain any sort of reasonable revenue from the web. Consumers perceive web content as ‘free’ whereas they are happy to pay for (iOS) apps, in their billions. Printed media on the other hand has manufacturing and distribution costs, which typically eat up cost more than 30% of total revenue. Apple’s fee gives you direct exposure to their user base, the devices sat in their pockets and their bank accounts, without the users having to do any more than what they already do.

2. There are no technical limitations to app publications if developers know what they are doing. Book/magazine apps can be built using HTML5 and do everything a web app can do, including linking to content within the app or elsewhere. But by wrapping it in an app, you make it a purchasable, or subscribable item.

3. The design of many book or magazine apps to date are poor. They either have readability or usability issues, or contain an abundance of multimedia or ‘interactive’ elements that distract from the experience of reading (see Wired). Pontin’s cancelled app was a prime example of this.

So the point is, to dismiss app publications as ‘unworkable’ seems a little premature, particularly if this statement is based on poorly executed examples. Publishers should try employing experienced app developers and designers and properly evaluating the results before giving up.

What I’d add to Jason Pontin post is an entry barier today vs 2 years ago.
It was huge investment for publishers to build their own apps two years ago, but today landscape filled with software as a service publishing sollutions that literally take and hour and a few hundred bucks to start your own app. Test your idea small scale, before going full power, right?

Disclamer, I work with http://presspadapp.com, one of those companies. That said, I still stay by that statement even if I wasn’t.