After months of speculation and anticipation The Daily app for iPad finally launched today. Rupert Murdock got proceedings underway and declared The Daily “a national news publication for the iPad” that will “completely re-imagine our craft”. He went on to say that “new times demand new journalism” and that The Daily will “take the best of conventual journalism and introduce it to contemporary technology.”
The Daily will provide you with “true news discovery” at $0.99 a week or $39.99 per annum.
Download The Daily from The App Store.
Murdock confessed that so far more than $30m has been spent on developing The Daily and it will incur weekly costs of $500,000 to maintain. Needless to say, Murdock is expecting millions of subscribers of The Daily to recoup its investment. The Daily will also be ad-supported and feature creative & engaging advertisements that will be sold at a premium.
While the App is currently only available for the iPad, future releases for other tablets is a distinct possibility.
More than 100 pages of news will be published each day and presented by a carousel menu that is similar to coverflow. The Daily will also include video of a human news anchor that introduces the news highlights.
You will be able to share news items on Facebook, Twitter, email articles to friends, and post comments using both text and voice. The Daily will link to external sources that are relevant to the news articles. For example a movie review will feature a link to the IMDB page for said movie. HD videos and 360′ imagery will provide a very slick way to enjoy rich media. Twitterfeeds of celebrities will be also be integrated into news stories on The Daily.
Stories published to the iPad app will also be mirrored on TheDaily.com when possible. There is no subscription required in order to access The Daily online.
If you own an iPad and are based in the US you can avail of a two week free subscription of The Daily courtesy of Verizon before choosing whether to continue with a paid subscription.