This is a long term look at where the industry itself is headed, and where our game is going. Digital is here, and its going to continue. The question is on how this is going to be happening, and what its implications are for print.
Here is a rumor about the future of Digital at Games Workshop with the introduction of a new app and more.
Now I want to say something before hand. Physical copies of codices are going to stay for quite some time. However, seeing how fast digital releases are, and easily they can be released, the digital game is going to overtake at some point. My suggestion, do not get all upset that physical print versions are completely going away. You will still be able to hold the book in your hands if that is what you want. It may just end up with a delay between digital and print like we have been seeing.
Games Workshop has been very good about giving us options on how we want our books.
Please remember that these are rumors. We have heard something similar before along these lines here on this site from someone completely different. So these things are starting to line up.
via an anonymous source from the Faeit 212 inbox
There is some talk about GW still working on a new App. It is supposed to launch with the new website next year.
It will be a full-fledged App allowing online purchases and, maybe more interesting, allowing GW to better enforce DRM for their digital books (i.e. the purchase of an ebook from GW will be linked to the account and can only be used through this account). The bright side is that it is supposed to include an army builder (this might be build into a new format of digitial codex), the downside is that it might be the end of the regular printed codex book. Collector's editions are selling so well that GW is considering to only offer the limited edition printed book "while stocks last" and the ebook version.
Orcs, supposed to be released after the launch of the new website, will be a kind of trial run offering all three versions of the codex (Collector's edition, new style digital codex and "normal" codex) with a big campaign to persuade customers of the advantages of the digital product.
In this regard, actual army lists might disappear from the Collector's editions. Instead they will include a version of the digital codex. This is considered to get rid of the FAQ/Erratas, those will be entirely solved through database updates on the App.