Report: News Corp’s New Subscription iPad Magazine To Be Debuted By Steve Jobs Later This Month

By

wsjipad

Both Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs agree: devices like the iPad are the future of media, and the death of print.

It looks, however, like Apple and News Corp. might be working more closely to bring that end about than it was previously thought: according to WWD, Apple is helping News Corp. build an iPad-only, subscription-based newspaper to devices in early 2011… and Steve Jobs himself might debut it.

The new paper wouldn’t simply be an app collating features from News Corp’s other outlets: instead, it’s an entirely new publication with new material called the Daily, which is described as having “a tabloid sensibility with a broadsheet intelligence.” It will cost a reasonable $0.99 per week to subscribe to the app’s content, and there will be no other print or online edition.

The most surprising aspect of all of this is that Apple’s engineers have apparently been assigned to help News Corp. out, and that Steve Jobs himself might debut the app alongside Rupert Murdoch later this month. It makes sense that Cupertino would take this seriously, though: what Apple’s trying to show is that an entirely new form of journalism can spring up and thrive on the iPad. Jobs doesn’t want the iPad to be the afterthought method of reading the day’s stories: he wants it to be the de facto terminal for doing so, and as such, there’s a lot indeed resting on The Daily’s strong debut. We can’t wait to see what comes of it.

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