For all the years I've done interactive design, there has been a cardinal rule: 
Paper breeds inertia. 
In order to have an application that uses the same content as the paper version, it is imperative that the application do it BETTER - faster, smoother, cooler, neater, easier, interactiver.  The mobile environment doesn't change the rule, it just gives us more ways to fulfill it.

About a month ago, Patrick did a review of several news apps on the iPad.  He felt they were all first-generation attempts, with various pros and cons but no sure winner.  He thought he wanted something that "uses the medium like News and BBC News, but honors the content like Editor's Choice."

Then along came Pulse.  Created by Stanford graduate students and costing $3.99, Pulse offers an integrated multi-feed presentation that makes the most of the iPad's real estate and interactivity.  See it here.

Pulse 'gets' some fundamental iPad usability concepts:

1.  Use the real estate, both horizontal and vertical.  Many apps are only optimized for one orientation, but Pulse allows the main news feed to appear at the bottom vertically, and at the side horizontally.

2.  Use scrolling and scroll acceleration.  Like the click of women's high heels in shopping malls, which makes them spend more (There's that urban geography background again), there is a visceral quality to the iPad scrolling experience. Faced with all of the feed streaming in Pulse, the scroll gives a user a feeling of power over information - a rare and powerful experience in the modern world.
 
3. Provide levels of information.  One of Patrick's complaints was the lack of summary information on some newsreaders.  Summaries are a great way to recognize the multi-tasking environment, while allowing access to the full content at a deeper level.  Pulse provides headlines, but also images or article introductions within the scrolling feed, so it is easy and smooth to filter and select.
 
4.  Use social media - considerately.  Facebook and Twitter are desperate to have people use badges that take up huge real estate on their websites.  Facebook's design guidelines (I know, only I would actually read them) almost require it.  But Pulse uses a very small iPad icon to get the social media access across without interfering with precious screen real estate.
 
5.  Don't expect user intuition.  One of the biggest mobile design myths is the assumption that the interface is so darned intuitive that any goof can get it without explanation.  The iPad can use up to 11 (yes 11) points of contact at any one time.  This is new stuff, it isn't necessarily intuitive. Pulse provides a feed of Pulse hints, for optimizing, customizing, and generally becoming a big old fan of their product.
 
Sounds great, doesn't it?  The New York Times thought so too, giving it a great review on June 1: "News organizations still puzzling over their iPad strategies can perhaps derive some hope from Pulse’s success — or at least its price tag."
 
But too bad.  You're not allowed to buy it any longer.

Today, that same New York Times forced Apple to pull Pulse from the AppStore.  They said Pulse was violating their terms of service by charging for an application that linked to their content.  Pulse doesn't pull the content in, it links to the content within the web-browser, but that isn't enough for the NYT.  Wired reports that Pulse has been downloaded 35,000 times.  Those people link to the content on the Times site, seeing the Times ads.
 
But in the paper-to-digital panic in which the modern newspaper operates, NYT has decided to prevent this interface to their content from operating. As Patrick tweeted, "NY Times: Sure we publish an RSS feed, but you can't use it! And, no, we don't want 35,000 new subscribers."
 
Back to the cardinal rule.  Paper breeds inertia.  While I fully appreciate the worry about content aggregation, newspapers need to figure out how to move on, maximizing their ad potential and minimizing their lawyering up.