The Daily Coming to Android Devices Sooner than Expected?

When The Daily launched on the iPad, it seemed like the ePublication would be Apple-exclusive for some time to come, with chairman of News Corp. Rupert Murdoch going so far as to say "we think last year, this year, and next year will belong to the iPad."

Apparently, however, that's not actually going to be the case, with the recent announcement of a planned release of The Daily for Android devices this spring.

The fact that this move is occurring isn't much of a surprise; Murdoch said on launch day that "We've been quite honest with Apple, and [The Daily will] be on all major tablets." The relative immediacy of the move, howevr, was not expected.

The speed with which The Daily is trying to spread across platforms could be a reaction to the tepid reaction to the publication so far. A reviewer at Slate wrote that his experience with The Daily's content left him "underimpressed." Jeremy Horwitz at iLounge also found the publication lacking, writing that "when the smartest section of a daily periodical is its sports section, something's really wrong."

Without a content turnaround and an accompanying improvement in critical reception, The Daily might not fare so well when the free trial period ends on February 28. If the publication maintains its current state, iPad users might not be too upset about losing their exclusive reading rights to News Corp's e-pub experiment.

Source: All Things Digital