Recently the iPad newspaper “The Daily” has been launched – a project that cost more than 30 million Dollars, it is said. After all, Rupert Murdoch wants it to ring in the new journalism.

I have taken a closer look at the app and admittedly I am disappointed; often, the navigation in terms of articles as well as departments appears illogical, the layout rather reminds me of a loud and vociferous freesheed than of a serious and sophisticated news medium. I also find that you may challenge an iPad reader with longer stories – as long as they are layouted appropriately. However, the stumps of “The Daily” rarely go deeper than the info bites you have already read in the teaser.

I consider it alarming that adverts are not marked as such. Even an attentive reader (me) does not realize whether a full-page image is a sales message or an article’s lead. I am curious how media will solve this problem in general in the future.

“The Daily”’s overall layout reminds me a lot of print. This impression could only be intensified by reviving a zombie of Gutenberg as Andrew Losowsky of the wonderful Magtastic Blogsplosion puts it. He’s got the knowledge and therefore his review is not just entertaining but also informative, so that I don’t have anything to add.

Subscribing to “The Daily” costs 99 cents per week and 40 dollars a year. However, all content can be read in the internet in seperate links, but not on one website. Even if you are a subscriber you cannot save a whole issue but only individual articles. As soon as a new issue is published the one from the day before disappears, at least if you don’t visit the tumblr page “The Daily: Indexed” by blogger Andy Baio who collects them all. While scanning them it is striking that the editors again do not really think of the impatient „lean forward”-reader. Almost no headline really tells what the article is about. Would you read such articles?

By the way, for two weeks you can get “The Daily” for free.