• The Onion, America's Finest News Source, Picks Finest Day To Debut iPad App

    Friday, April 1st, 2011

    Erick Schonfeld is a technology journalist and the former Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily for the blog. He joined TechCrunch as Co-Editor in 2007, and helped take it from a popular blog to a thriving... → Learn More

    This is not a joke. The Onion, “America’s Finest News Source” (TM), released its iPad app fittingly enough on April Fools Day. IPad apps are serious stuff. This one delivers fake news stories, videos,and images from the parody site in both vertical and landscape modes.

    It’s a pretty basic fake-news reading app, but it gets the job done. You can swipe through stories, watch videos, check out funny charts. Articles can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Google Reader or saved to read later via Instapaper or Pinboard. All pretty standard. From the press release:

    Now, using the latest news-providing technologies, The Onion introduces a format that allows you to touch the news. That’s right. Swipe it, poke it, berate it, and it reacts accordingly.

    . . . “Whatever other news applications you’ve installed up to this point can be deleted now,” said Director of Digital Baratunde Thurston. “Also, please try to avoid touching our news in inappropriate places. There are good touches and bad touches.”

    The app relies heavily on HTML5, and it should be popular. The Onion’s other mobile apps on the iPhone and Android have been downloaded more than one million times.

    Company: The Onion
    Website: theonion.com
    Launch Date: September 1988

    The Onion is an American “fake news” organization. It features satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news as well as an entertainment newspaper and website.

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    Product: iPad
    Website: apple.com
    Company Apple

    The Apple iPad, formerly referred to as the Apple Tablet, is a touch-pad tablet computer announced in January 2010, and released in April 2010. It has internet capabilities running on either WiFi or 3G, and offers an optional dock with a full size mechanical keyboard. The 3G is provided by AT&T, but comes unlocked with microsim cards on the GSM network. The 3G does not require a long-term contract. The iPad is a line of tablet...

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