I’ve been reading The Daily, the iPad-native magazine, for the last few weeks, at least flipping through it almost daily. I find it a nice take on tablet news reading, though not without frustrations or room for improvement—it is still version one after all.
Others have shared their thoughts on The Daily. Here are mine. (I also provided these to the staff there.)
- I love the subtle little animations that appear on some pages. There isn’t too many or too few. Same with the subtle cues for where I can find more (turn for story, arrows down or right, for example).
- There seems to be no way to turn off the startup sound. It plays even when the tablet is muted.
- I’m often confused about what a “hot spot” might do or where it might take me. Sometimes more info comes in a pop-over. Other times, one whisks me off to a new place. This extends to links of all types. Is it going to kick me to a browser or iTunes or the App Store?
- When tweeting a link, it would be helpful if the default text included The Daily‘s Twitter username, since the magazine’s username isn’t consistent across services, and the piece’s title. It would probably lead to more traffic from social, too, than the generic “check it out” text.
- The app clearly pre-loads the next page of content, which is nice because I can move that way quickly or see the rest of a two-page photo without running into a seam. But I wish the app would leave the last page in its cache so I could just as quickly go back a page.
- I’d love to see the carousel be more responsive. It remains laggy. The compressed JPGs look too low-resolution, too.
- When The Daily crashes, it’s frustrating to have to go back to the beginning and find my place again. I wish it would save my place for when I returned. (This is particularly frustrating because of the carousel’s lagginess.)
- The “viewed” indications on content are very helpful.
- I haven’t found a way to access old issues. Even just being able to find old tables of contents would be a plus.
- The stories seem to be the right length for the most part. I could do without the gossip stuff, but generally I feel like I can find and read the pieces I want. I would like to see more smart features, though — maybe one a day — on technology, food, world politics, etc. Something that wouldn’t be out of place in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Economist, etc. Just one would make the whole thing feel less fluffy and more substantial.
- I wish the timers on the sudoku and the crossword didn’t start right away. I find it bizarrely stressful.
- I would like to be able to select text for tweeting, quoting, etc. Pages with multiple stories are frustrating to share, too. I’m glad The Daily has made content available online for sharing purposes.
- I do a lot of my long-form iPad reading through Instapaper. I wish The Daily had either a way to add pieces to Instapaper or an Instapaper/Readability-type reading view.
- Even if I’ve downloaded the day’s issue, it take a while to get past the loading screen later.