[Phebe]

The Daily: I hate it, I hate it.

Here's why: first, they blew their Jan. 19 announced startup date. Indefinite postponement. Then they sort of drifted in without much publicity. I found out, though, and downloaded the app. I had to put in a lot of info, even tho it's free for two weeks.

Then I read it, but yesterday I saw an update in the app update and it said on the top, all caps, "DELETE THE ORIGINAL APP BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE UPDATE."

So I did. And then when I went back to the app update page, the update was of course GONE ------ because the app was gone. [Sigh] [Sigh] [Sigh]

Did they just totally wipe out their whole entire subscriber base, I wondered?

Possibly.

I went back to Apple and resubscribed, and this time I didn't have to fill in a lot of stuff, so maybe they had saved that.

I think what happened is that they came out with an interim app, realizing that the indefinite postponement was direly losing their buzz, and now are doing fixes as fast as they can. Personally, I think this is a bad idea.

Here's the second reason I hate The Daily:

Yes, it is slow. Other news readers are not slow, and I know, because I'm a news junkie.

Also, it's incredibly shallow. I mean, USA Today is intellectual compared with The Daily!!! Cool, hip, flip, brief, that's what they aim for, and there's just no there there. Where is the NEWS?? I wonder who they suppose their readership is? People with 90 to 100 IQ who have........iPads? ARE there any of these people? Are they thinking iPads will have such deep penetration, like cellphones, that they are going for the lowbrow from the beginning?

I know who you people are: you're the smarties. I recommend the excellent newsreader app Fluent News first. Then the BBC, then the Wall Street Journal app, which costs the moon but is totally worth it and even has video interviews. WSJ, best paper in America, whether in print, online, or on the iPad. You want Murdoch, I'd say pay a little more and get the best.