I've been reading The Daily since its launch this week, Rupert Murdoch's iPad-only daily news application, instead of my usual NYTimes.com. They are really exploring the design potential that comes with a device like the iPad, and the result is very attractive. Strong use of full bleed photographs considered for both vertical and horizontal formats contributes to the generally beautiful design, the interface comes alive, and only occasionally does it look like they are trying too hard. The New York Times iPad app feels old and half-hearted in comparison. (Lufthansa's iPad app version of their inflight magazine is still the most beautifully designed iPad mag that I've seen so far.) The ads in/on The Daily caught my attention: The design of one for Virgin Atlantic looked like a standard full page ad layout in any print mag until, after a momentary page-load-pause, all of the photographs on the page started to move Harry Potter-like, in short video loops. Here is another use for my hybrid still/video productions. Another ad, for the Land Rover LR2, is designed with one main image area that becomes a YouTube imbed. Rotating through these, the whole ad feels like Land Rover's YouTube channel page. The first video that I was served was about the making of their TV commercial, which ironically I didn't get to see. The next was a charming short film about a Dad and his young son going off to explore a Canadian desert. Another great use of the kind of small Canon-based work that I do, that's a job I would have liked to have gotten. The Daily shows us where publishing is going to go. I have no doubt about that. Whether this particular execution of that idea will still be around in two or three years is another question, and that depends on their ability to write and deliver the actual news. After exploring and being delighted by The Daily, I still need to go back to NYTimes.com to find out if Hosni Mubarak is still in power this morning.