‘The Daily’ set to debut on iPad next week

'The Daily' set to debut on iPad next week

Apple and News Corp. are reportedly planning to launch "The Daily", a newspaper application for the iPad next week, specifically on January 19 in San Francisco.

The status of the near-confidential project which is aimed at revitalizing the sagging fortunes of the news industry has been heavily speculated during the past several months.

Dow Jones said that News Corp. chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch and Apple chief executive Steve Jobs will personally announce the launch of "The Daily" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It also said that "The Daily" was previewed during the Consumer Electronics Show held last week in Las Vegas.

Murdoch confirmed rumors of the project in November, calling it as one of the "exciting projects" his media empire is actively developing. Forbes magazine reported that as many as 150 people are involved in the 30-million dollar project.

"The Daily" will attempt to bring the news content of traditional newspapers over to the tablet platform amid dwindling circulation and print advertising earnings.

Murdoch is pinning his hopes on the iPad to make his business relevant in the future. "There's going to be tens of millions of these things sold all over the world," he said. "It may be the saving of newspapers because you don't have the costs of paper, ink, printing, trucks".

But he still sees the online platform as complementary. "It doesn't destroy the traditional newspaper, it just comes in a different form," Murdoch added.

The media mogul has been adamant in the past about his decision to charge online readers of his papers such as The Wall Street Journal. But it remains to be seen if he wants to charge subscription fees for "The Daily".

Posted by Kade Quinn on Friday January 14 2011, 3:39 AM EDT. Ref: Inquirer. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Entertainment, Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0