News

Later today, at around the same time that Google spills the beans on its tablet-optimised Android Honeycomb operating system, Rupert Murdoch will unveil the first newspaper built specifically for tablets.

Murdoch’s News Corp is reported to have invested $30m – and employed 100 journalists – to produce The Daily, which will be available to American iPad owners for a mere 99c a week. With around 15m iPads sold – many of them outside the US – it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that it’s going to take quite some time before The Daily’s costs are recouped.

Nonetheless, I think this bold launch should be praised. As an iPad owner, I’m excited by the Daily, even if it’s only going to give me American news (for now – regional editions are expected).

Tablets are crying out for a great newspaper app. The Times (£10 a month) and Telegraph (free) iPad apps are passable, but they cling to slavishly to their print heritage, reheating yesterday’s news and adding very little tablet sparkle.

And while the Independent’s i paper iPad app is a cracking read and perfectly paced for tablet consumption, it is let down by its crushingly dull (and crash-prone) PDF presentation. Only the FT app (for Samsung Galaxy Tab and iPad) really shines. It’s full of fresh news and a sprinkled with interactivity – but of course it serves a niche audience and, at £4.49 a week, isn’t cheap.

So I believe there’s a massive opportunity for The Daily, with its interactive charts and made-for-tablet editorial. But there’s a problem, too – The Daily will be an iPad exclusive. And while Apple’s tablet is the only show in town right now, things are bound to change. Even before Android is ready for tablets, it has a 22% market share.

The tablets from HP and Blackberry may only find niche audiences, but with many manufacturers rallying behind Android 3.0 Honeycomb, it’s likely that the iPad will be challenged in the coming years. If the smartphone market is anything to go by, Android tablets may not outshine the iPad, but they will undercut and out-geek it.

Murdoch needs to keep an open mind. Having squandered MySpace and failed to find a decent business model online, he’s still searching for the pot of gold at the end of the internet. And as newspaper sales plummet, the search is becoming frantic.