Last week Rupert Murdoch launched his new new venture, The Daily. It will be his only paper in his disparate stable that never actually makes it on to paper, as it only available through the iPad. He has spent $30 million in its development.

It is available free of charge for another week or so, and then will be available only by subscription at 99c week. It is only available in the US Itunes store, so you will need this workaround if you want to try the app while it is free.

The design and interface is slick, and I enjoy reading news on the iPad. While some of the international reporting is first class, the content is too American focused to maintain my subscription – but I’m not the target audience.

There is a web site for the Daily, so that readers can share stories with their friends who don’t have the app. However, the website is purposefully designed not to have a front page or index, and the pages have obscure addresses, so that without the app you can’t easily find the daily news. Never count on obfuscation on the web as a way of hiding stuff – independent programmer Andy Baio created his own ‘indexing’ engine and how publishes the missing front page for the Daily – so that’s another way you can check it out.

Fast Company has a comprehensive report on The Daily launch.

The best app for news available for us in Australia is the Australian iPad app, also from News Corp. It was launched without the fanfare or resources of the Daily at the time of the launch of the iPad in Australia in May last year. Initially $4.99 a month, it is now $8.99 a month. This includes the full daily content of the Australian newspaper.

Although this content is also available through the website, the app makes it much easier to flip through the paper quickly, and once downloaded does not rely on an ongoing Internet connection. Unfortunately, in the latest version of the app the advertisments have become more intrusive.

The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age are not in the game. They have an iPad app, which is simply a pdf version of the paper edition. And, somewhat bizarrely, you require a subscription to the real paper to receive it.

Tthe Australian ipad App remains in my top 10, and is part of my ‘daily office’.