News Corp has released its new digital newspaper exclusive to the iPad, The Daily.
News Corp is hoping The Daily will explode onto the scene and shake up an industry firmly set in old print media’s approach.
The Daily has launched with a full staff of reporters covering global news and will come with a free two-week trial for iPad users. We’ve taken a look into what could be the future of newspapers and come back with a few initial reactions. The big takeaways are:
- Interactivity is king.
- For updates and new content, it is a mix of a traditional newspaper and that paper’s Web site.
- The design is pretty and easy to navigate right away; there were very few situations where we encountered any lag or any odd rendering.
- Updating is an active process, but the status display makes even waiting engaging.
The Bare Bones of a Smart UI
First and foremost, downloading The Daily requires users to agree to a new iTunes terms and conditions agreement that includes a clause saying applications may provide the user’s personal information to third parties for marketing purposes — it does note that users can choose to opt out of this.
It looks as though the ability to share subscriber information with advertisers was a major sticking point for Apple and publishers as the two sides made a deal for in-application subscriptions. For now, the other sticking points are unclear as this is the first to offer Apple’s in-app subscriptions. Apple’s head of iTunes, Eddy Cue, said that Apple will soon reveal more information about in-app subscriptions and make the feature available to other app and content providers.
New issues of The Daily come when a user starts the application, going against rumors that new issues would be downloaded automatically in the background — this is actually good news for some that were worried the downloading may start when connected to a 3G network and thus use up some data without asking.
The loading process was quick and the app pulls up a carousel where users can browse and view sections and stories with a very intuitive and engaging UI. Content is displayed before the entire issue is downloaded. From a few quick changes it looks like the app will continually update throughout the day but will feature major updates each morning, more akin to a new issue of a newspaper arriving at our digital doorstep.
Text can be seen easily in portrait and landscape modes while images are seen in bigger sizes and better quality in landscape mode. The only lag we came across was when switching between portrait and landscape modes on pages with a lot more graphical content than seemed to be average for the rag. The scroll bar up top, called a “visual browser,” is enabled to give the reader an idea of how far through The Daily they have progressed.
Content Tailored to the Device and the User
Going through the issue, we learned that interactivity is a major, major key to this newspaper. The Daily’s stories often feature interactivity like videos, but there is plenty of other specialization, like a sports story featuring trivia about the Super Bowl or advertisements that interact with the user via video and motion events.
For users on the go, one of the nicer features is having the stories read aloud by clicking a headphones button. The Daily gives users controls like fast forwarding, shuffling and even a summary of the day’s issue.
While there are no announced plans for an iPhone companion app just yet, we see some major appeal here by giving users the ability to mark a list of stories to be read aloud and then push that to their iPhone for a podcast-like subscription service for users while commuting or otherwise away from a Wi-Fi hotspot.
For sports fans, users can select their favorite teams and get headlines, check scores and stats, and see social networking posts related with their favorite teams and players — this is Twitter integration initially.
Sharing is also made available for stories, even with others that don’t have an iPad. Shared links provide access to the full text story covered but include a notice that the content is coming from an iPad app and that extra content (images and video) is only available on the iPad itself.
The app also integrates with Apple’s GameCenter, covering Sudoku and crossword scores and sharing them across the gaming network.
The Daily is available for free for two weeks, through sponsor Verizon Wireless. Users can opt-in to enroll in a weekly subscription of 99 cents or a yearly subscription for $39.99.
Payments are automatically reoccurring until the user cancels.
Our initial reaction to the app is that it is a very clean and solid read. The problems it will face are convincing users that its cost is worth it compared to other apps and Web sites available, not compared to existing newspapers. It is a very impressive app and will serve as a model for future newspapers and magazine to follow in terms of functionality and UI, but in the end it’ll come down to convincing users that the content inside is worth it.
Getting users hooked with two free weeks might just be the key to this whole thing.
To see 4 free editions of The Online Reporter, the weekly source for competitive intelligence about digital content, online entertainment services, mobile media and wireless networks, visit www.onlinereporter.com/trial_copies.php
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