I´m an Apple enthusiast and I remember when people used to tell me the iPad would be a waste of money because, as they say, it is a gigantic iPod touch. The iPad was launched in the UK on May 28 on a price of 429 pounds for the basic Wi-Fi model.
I don´t regret this decision; instead I encourage people to buy it, though Apple doesn´t pay me a penny for this type of advertisement. I just want to share my joy with my peeps and show them the magic this “oversized” product can do and I don´t feel bad I don´t get a profit every time I do it.
Why this excitement? Regardless the Internet, audio and video features, the one that helps me the most is the newspaper apps.
An app is a little programme, not included as a native item on the iPad, which is developed by a third party. Basically you can find almost everything, as the slogan says “there´s an app for that”.
On my second year of journalism reading newspapers is a vital part of the process of learning the art of writing stories, so I need to be cracking different articles everyday to find my way.
To be honest I find newspapers uncomfortable. You open them and the pages just slip away, so I find electronic versions better. Here´s where the iPad comes in!
The Guardian, The Telegraph and i are some of the papers you can find in app version. And if that wasn´t enough you can buy the newspapers in their original format from a newsstand app called PressReader.
So Britain is covered, but what about the rest of the World? As half Mexican and half Swedish, I get my news from El Universal and DN respectively; and when it comes to the United States you’ll find the New York Times has an app. So as you can tell, this gadget is indeed amazing.
Recently, history was made: the first iPad newspaper was lunched on February the 3rd. The Daily is the name of the paper that was created specifically for the iPad and that has not a paper edition: it’s totally digital.
To get The Daily, apart from having an iPad (obviously), you need a US iTunes account. You can create it for free from your device or from a computer and normally you would need a credit card from that country, but the US store allows you to have an account without giving any bank details. It is a good thing because, though you can’t purchase anything, you can download free music or, in this case, apps like The Daily.
On how to create an iTunes account without a credit card go to http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534.
So once you have your account you go to the US app store on the iPad and download The Daily app.
I was amazed when I launched the app. It automatically starts downloading the new edition and once it loads it looks like the best digital newspaper I’ve ever seen.
It has the main story picture at the beginning, with the newspaper sections on the top. These include news, gossip, opinion, arts & life, apps & games and sports. After you flip with your finger, a set of instructions on how to use the application appear, which for me and I guess for users comes very handy.
As I’m writing this column on my iPad and using multitasking to check the features of The Daily to list them here I’ve noticed that every time I exit the app and launch again it doesn’t pick up where I left. It shows me the pages preview, starting from the one I was reading, and in the top, the weather in New York. When I pinch here It takes me to the weather forecast section.
Videos are included in several pages to make it more appealing and more interactive, but when it comes to listening to music and reading the paper it can be a little bit annoying, because the music stops every time a page has this type of content… Oh well, I guess is a minor thing.
So what is better? An “old fashion” newspaper or the iPad? My lecturer Rob Campbell says he couldn’t read on a device like this because is tiny, but for me that’s the most appealing feature. It’s up to you to judge, but the digital era approaching faster and faster is a sure thing!
Author: Edgar Elias Pelcastre Norell.
EPELTECH 