Posts Tagged ‘ipad2’
A Sign of the times: Fairfax Newspapers Online
Fairfax media, the owner of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers has today taken it’s online presence further, by launching a mobile application to view it’s news content via Apple’s very popular iPad.
The media conglomorate has said the application will provide users a new way of reading news, and help the company pay for it’s reporting expenses.
In a changing digital world, people are heading online more than ever to keep abreast of news and current affairs, and make informed purchasing decisions, or buy direct from an online store to enjoy cost savings. Fairfax has embraced this change by now entering this space, despite possibly being a little late off the mark.
The Fairfax online app will be free during the initial 6 month launch period, but will move to a paid subsrciption of $8.99 per month from December this year, possibly signalling a move for it’s remaining online presence to move online, like News Corp’s publishing houses, however Jake Mathews, Chief Executive at Fairfax seems to deny that the website will move to a fully-paid subscription model.
The Fairfax application for Apple iPad is available today from the Apple App store, with an Android application coming soon.
More information, see the Fairfax website
iPad2 Release Date
The much anticipated successor to Apple’s popular iPad tablet, the iPad2 is due to launch in North America today, with Apple fans expected in their troves to line up around the block and camp outside of stores across the USA to get their hands on the latest piece of shiny goodness from Steve Job’s empire.
The new iPad, which launches in Australia on 25th March 2011, has a new A5 dual core processor, meaning it can load applications much faster, and handle more applications, and is reported to have nine times the graphics processing power of its predecessor, great for games and movies.
The iPad2 is thinner and lighter the original, and still matches the battery performance of the older iPad , which is great for power users wanting to spend all day with their iPad.
In addition to a cosmetic upgrade and performance enhancements under the hood, the iPad 2 has a new “Smart Cover” which clips onto the iPad magnetically, flips open like a book cover, acts as a protective screen cover and power saver when the cover is closed, and also doubles as a stand.
It also has a front-facing camera for “facetime” a video conferencing feature which was sorely missed in the first generation, and led to much criticism of the first iPad launch.
The release date for iPad2 in Australia is 25th March 2011, and is expected to go on sale with a starting price of approximately $650 for the base 3G model with 16GB of storage, with a $100 premium for Wifi+3G, and storage options up to 64GB.
The optional magnetic Smart Cover is expected to retail from $70-140 depending on whether the polyurethane or leather option is selected, however these figures are speculative, as Apple is yet to launch an official Australian price list.
See the Apple website for more details.