So that will have to conclude our little tour of unresponsive interfaces in The Daily. In closing, there are two points I’d like to stress.
One: every one of these fixes is easy. Something I would feel comfortable knocking out in a day or two of my own time. This app reportedly cost $30mil to produce.
Two: while one of the advantages of the AppStore is it allows small shops to adopt a “ship it and fix it” mentality, The Daily was introduced at a huge launch event and has a limited two week “trial” period with which to win users over. In short, there was a lot of incentive to get things right straight out of the gate.
I simply cannot wrap my head around this disconnect. What happened? Talented developers unfamiliar with a new platform? Poor management? Shifting priorities? Infrastructure scrambling to hit a moving editorial target?
Normally I would not be concerned with such post mortems. But this was a high-profile company creating a high-profile product exclusively for the iPad. Many executives are looking at The Daily to judge the viability of throwing development dollars at expansive projects targeting the iOS platform. I think that be good for the iPad, its users, and its developers.
But looking at the train wreck that is The Daily, they’d have to be mad to make that bet.
via Four Star Store – The Daily. Sounds like winning software people.