At the FT Media Conference in March mainstream media publishers lined up to described how they were scrambling to get their apps onto the iPad.
Yet with a few notable exceptions to the shift from print to iPad is disappointing. The Guardian and The Financial Times have repurposed their existing iPhone apps. At double magnification they pixelate but if you’ve already bought the app you won’t need to shell out again.
Pulse is good. It’s based on the Newser like-grid but with full articles rather than summaries. It aggregates and serves up stories in a visually appealing format. Tap a story that interest you and you’re taken to the full text
I’m also a fan of Instapaper. It allows you to save web pages from a browser for syncing and viewing later offline. I already use the web version but I can see it being a productivity boom on the iPad.
Existing web properties work well on the iPad. The Safari browser is fast and touch driven navigation is incredibly natural.
Video also works well providing of course that you don’t need Flash. ITV Player won’t work but BBC iPlayer is fantastic. And the Sky Mobile TV app is good.
The iPhone audio apps that I have come to love, such as RadioBox and Spotify, work well on the iPad. But again that’s no surprise; they’re the same app repurposed for the iPad.
I’ve looked hard for books that make good use of the iPad without success. If you’ve any recommendations I love to hear from you. Likewise if you’ve discovered any interesting approaches to new media on the iPad please let me know.
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Not books but Wired magazine is worth a look as it attempts to incorporate multimedia into a magazine format. Videos within the adverts feel a little disjointed in presentation and making an image interactive but a good first attempt. In fact the simplest idea of clicking a headline on the cover which takes you to the relevant article is just brilliant.
Newsrack looks to be a worthy RSS feed reader but I’m holding out for Reeder which should appear soon.
Think Guardian Eyewitness is a stunning app while Reuters does well even if it does lag a little.
Looking forward to getting my hands on The Times this weekend and seeing how the Daily Express introduce their new app soon.
Basically, I don’t think any media outlet has managed to succeed in created something genuinely unique for the iPad but it’s early days and I think there’s an opportunity for a startup or lone developer to show the big boys how it’s done.
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I’ve never seen the FT iPhone app, but the iPad app that I have downloaded, free trial until July, is pretty impressive. Full screen, video, animated infographic, the whole shooting match. Here’s a link to the app in the iTunes store: http://tinyurl.com/2eau7lk
Not sure I’d pay for it, but I’m not an FT kind of guy.
The NPR app is excellent also, wonderful mix of magazine, radio and video in a quirky three-tier layout.
[...] my search for media apps for the iPad yesterday I completely missed the FT’s new app. A search for Financial Times (rather than FT) in the Apps [...]