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Sky News has announced a new app for the Apple iPad, although the press release and quotes comply obediently with Apple's marketing by dropping the definite article, but only before ‘iPad'. It's still allowed elsewhere, it seems.
The reason we consider this newsworthy is that the app appears to be highly optimised for the tablet format, and thus will be competing, at least partially, with News Corp's The Daily tablet newspaper. Yes, the emphasis will be on video, but inevitably a lot of the tablet-optimised interactive features will be similar.
Sky is claiming there's also a dedicated editorial team just for this app, so this is a pretty serious investment. Whether such an investment is being made in spite or because of Rupert Murdoch's offer to sell Sky News in order to get his hands on the remainder of Sky he doesn't currently own, we couldn't say.
"Having delivered content across digital, online and mobile, iPad was the next logical platform on which to break new ground," said John Ryley, head of Sky News. "With more and more of our viewers embracing mobile devices to stay connected to the news, the launch of Sky News for iPad is one of the most important developments in Sky News' history."
"We challenged ourselves by coming up with new ways to deliver news to our users, taking advantage of the unique features and functionality of iPad. We wanted to bring users more control and flexibility to how they view and interact with the news they want. The result is Sky News for iPad."
The app is available now, we're told, and for free. But before long only Sky subscribers will continue to get it for free and everyone else will have to pay a monthly subscription. As we reported earlier, The Daily is expected to launch in the UK this summer.
While it's coming from a print rather than broadcast direction, we have to assume there will be a fair bit of overlap in terms of interactive functionality, and they will definitely be covering many of the same stories. So you have to wonder to what extent they will cannibalise each other's markets.
Here's Dermot Murnaghan marvelling over the new app.
