Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch and Apple VP Eddy Cue (the guy who runs iTunes and the App Store) announced the new iPad-only daily newspaper called The Daily. It has a ton of content and lots of pictures, and has a New York Post and USA Today sort of feel to it. Many stories can be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode, but some stories only show a large picture in landscape mode with an icon at the bottom left telling you that you need to turn your iPad to see the story.
If you want a more comprehensive review of the app, I recommend these articles:
- Hands-On With the Daily for iPad by Darrell Etherington of GigaOM.
- First thoughts on The Daily by Jim Dalrymple of The Loop
- First look: ‘The Daily’ for iPad promises in-depth, interactive news by Neil Hughes of AppleInsider
- Another look at The Daily by Dave Caolo of TUAW
- News Corp. lauches The Daily news magazine for iPad by Philip Michaels of Macworld
- News Corporation Introduces The Daily, a Digital-Only Newspaper by Jeremy Peters and Brian Stelter of The New York Times
Interesting tidbit from that New York Times article for people like me who grew up loving Superman: Murdoch originally wanted to call the new publication “The Daily Planet,” but DC Comics would not agree to grant the rights to use the name.
There is little reason for me to discuss The Daily itself because if you own an iPad, just go ahead and download it yourself and see what you think. For the next two weeks, The Daily is free (thanks to a sponsorship by Verizon). After that, it will cost $0.99 a week or $39.99 a year to subscribe, with subscriptions taking place through iTunes. I haven’t decided yet whether I will subscribe to The Daily after the free period has ended.
It is the subscription model itself that I find most interesting. I love reading news on my iPad, and I would love it if all of my print magazine subscriptions suddenly turned into iPad-only subscriptions so that I would always have my magazines with me when I travel or just find a few minutes to read. The good news is that the subscription model used by The Daily will be available for other publications, so I hope that in the future we will see lots of subscription options for the iPad. The bad news for publishers is that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is now requiring that any publisher who sells content — both books and subscriptions — must sell that content as an in-app purchase, which means that Apple keeps 30% of the sale. Some of that is used to pay for the credit card processing fee, so the publisher does realize some savings by having Apple handle the transaction, but my suspicion is that this will reduce per-book or per-issue profits for publishers. If the publisher sees a huge increase in sales by being on the iPad, I suppose it is worth it. But if not, this could result in higher prices for consumers who want to consume the content on the iPad.
It is still way to early to tell how all of this will sort out, but I’m optimistic that we will soon live in a world in which I no longer have to pay for publications to be printed and mailed or delivered to me and instead I can just pay to have the latest issues instantly appear on my iPad and/or iPhone, all in a format that really take advantage of the iPad/iPhone and the iOS.
Finally, I like this quote from Rupert Murdoch yesterday, talking about Steve Jobs and the promising future of the iPad: “Here we have the man who invented the personal computer, then the laptop. He’s now destroying them. That is an amazing life.”
Click here for The Daily (free for two weeks; then $0.99/day, $39.99/year): 
I also find the subscription model interesting, as will a lot of app developers. Right now, many app developers continue to develop content simply to keep the “buzz” going around their application (e.g., if people keep playing new angry birds levels, others will see them and also want to play). However, I wonder how much it would spur additional content development if any app developer could have an ongoing revenue stream from existing customers (currently, this requires developers to issue periodic, time relevant apps). This would be useful, for example, for apps that require ongoing maintenance and updating. For example, apps that connect w/ google adsense may require ongoing tweaking to continue working. If the app breaks, the developer’s only incentive to fix is in NEW app sales. If the developer can continually monetize existing users, the overall quality of apps may increase.