First Look & Gallery: The Sun Launches £4.99-A-Month iPad Edition

trending topics

Our news

Yes, it’s true: We are joining GigaOM...

First Look & Gallery: The Sun Launches £4.99-A-Month iPad Edition

Comments (View)
Text Size: A A
Email
Share

News Corp.‘s UK daily tabloid has followed The Times to Apple’s tablet, with an app edition that, at £4.99 a month, is half as much as its serious stablemate.

Renewing via iOS’ recurring subscription, the price equates to £0.20 a day, £0.10 cheaper than in print, and includes two user interfaces - a custom, swipeable app that will be familiar to anyone who’s used The Times app but is more visual, and a page-turner replica of the print edition that includes Page 3.

Indeed, the app view occasionally suffers from white space caused by underuse of photos against text.

» Browse The Sun’s iPad edition in our slideshow gallery...

Note that The Sun is launching its pay-for tablet edition before it’s taking its website down the fees route - something News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) has promised…

Many observers think The Sun will be harder pressed than The Times to find paying web customers. If readers are reluctant to pay on the web, are they really also going to buy a £400+ device and the £4.99-a-month required by the app?

Another interesting point - The Sun has managed to get around Apple’s infamous bans on sexually explicit content - Page 3 features in the replica edition.

In 2009, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) banned a third-party Newspapers app from carrying The Sun because it contained Page 3.

But The Sun itself, here, has got the page through Steve Jobs, because downloading requires customers to confirm that they are 17 or over, because the app ““contains age-restricted material”.

» Browse The Sun’s iPad edition in our slideshow gallery...