Johannesburg independent newspaper the Daily Maverick on Thursday unveiled iMaverick, SA’s first daily newspaper specifically designed for the iPad.
The Apple dedicated version was due to premier on August 15, making it the world’s second English iPad newspaper, the Daily Maverick said.
“Conceived and produced by a team of six, in a modest one room office in Johannesburg”, said Styli Charalambous, the company’s chief executive. “This is possibly a great media leap, created on an even more modest budget”.
“The iPad is the most desirable device on the planet and is transforming people’s experience of news and content. We’re taking the next logical step with our free online news and analysis site Daily Maverick by launching a fully-featured newspaper as a premium offering.iMaverick will help SA’s growing community of iPad readers to understand the world by giving them the best read on their tablet every day.”
“It makes sense that a subscription based, daily iPad newspaper is the next generation of news for this country. Our media company has been credited for upping the game of providing news, analysis and commentary since we launched a couple of years ago,” said Branko Brkic, the founder of the Daily Maverick and editor of iMaverick.
Brkic said that iMaverickwould be a newspaper for South Africans who cared about their brains and wanted to understand what was happening in the world for the cost of a daily cup of coffee.
“Anyone can distribute information — all you need to do is subscribe to a news agency and cut and paste articles. We take a radically different approach with original, crusading journalism and opinion that seeks to challenge people’s thinking. We create understanding,” Brkic said.
The group said it would extend its editorial team to include some “big name journalists”.
“We’ll be making full use of the iPad’s technology, glorious colour, full connectivity and multimedia capabilities to again challenge the way that news is reported on in this country and reshape the boundaries of journalism with our subscription-based newspaper,” Brkic said.
Subscribers to the newspaper could expect to see regular coverage of business, politics, current affairs, sport, entertainment, technology and health. — I-Net Bridge