The day-later fallout from Apple's announcement of the iPad in the newspaper industry is one of caution. While there is little question the imminent arrival of the device can help deliver newspaper-driven content, it isn't any kind of panacea.

The chief economist of Google weighed in quickly Thursday with a sobering view. Hal Varian believes the iPad will help, but that full-on reinvention will be needed to make the newspaper's economics viable.

Varian believes the iPad will help newspapers reach people during the day, but he's not a proponent of paywalls between them and content.

"The challenge is, how can we make newspaper reading a leisure-time activity again? We know reading the news is valuable to our customers, but they don't spend much time doing it." .