Ever since it was first announced last year, Rupert Murdoch’s digital newspaper The Daily has been referred to as an “iPad-only” publication. Soon, that verbiage will need to change.
That’s because the publication is apparently looking to expand onto Android tablets as well. According to a report on news site All Things Digital, Murdoch likes what he has seen out of Android 3.0, also known as Honeycomb.
Honeycomb is the version of Android that Google says is optimized for tablets. In fact, it may be a tablet-only version of the mobile operating system so that it doesn’t have to work on smartphones too.
The optimized operating system hasn’t been released yet. Tablets like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab are running on older versions of Android, essentially making them giant Android phones. However, a swarm of Honeycomb-enabled devices is coming soon – including Motorola’s Xoom, LG’s G-Slate, and HTC’s Flyer.
When Murdoch first introduced The Daily, he didn’t say anything about Android. In fact, given the Apple fanfare he received it seemed pretty certain that it would be exclusive to the iPad. But that wasn’t in the contract with Apple, so he’s free to put it on whatever format he wants.
The only thing The Daily won’t do is go for a print version. That’s kind of the whole point of it.
