As I said last week would happen today, Sky News (DStv 402) today launched its brand-new and free Sky News for iPad service which is astounding, revolutionary and amazing and is creating a whole new way of making live television news mobile with added module content to be consumed by the new tablet generation.
The Sky News for iPad interactive service allows users to watch Sky News live exactly like on television, or to choose blocks of video stories that includes rewind and fast forward capability and is all surrounded by added modules including interactive graphics, text, background articles, interactive graphs, tables, and other videos for more analysis and context on news as it unfolds. Sky News for iPad is overwhelming, beautiful and immersively content rich, adding an almost impossible to comprehend profusion of additional dimensions to breaking news.
The user can switch between watching a live Sky News feed by clicking on ''Live'' to see the day's news as it unfolds, or swipe through a ''timeline'' of news story videos with all the key news moments of the last 24 hours. The news videos also show up in a grid and are of differing sizes depending on their perceived importance if the user tap ''Top Stories''.
''Sky News for iPad is a completely new way to put breaking news in your hands,'' says the British 24 hour news channel. Sky News says it has a dedicated editorial team just to produce the real-time updates, expert analysis and interactive graphics. ''Irrespective of where you are or what you're busy with in the app, a yellow bar at the bottom of the screen will alert you to breaking news. Tap it and you'll be taken straight to it.'' When users tap on the ''Backstory'', video will come up with stories that led up to the current news event.
Sky News for iPad is available for free from the App Store on iPad. Sky News says this remarkable service will be free initially to everyone. Without mentioning a date, Sky News says later a monthly service fee will be introduced.
• On Tuesday in America Time Warner Cable, one of the biggest pay TV operators in America, also introduced a new app for the iPad. This new app allows subscribers to watch live video streaming - meaning you get to watch the exact same live feed as on a TV channel - from 31 TV channels on your iPad if you're a subscriber.
