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First African daily iPad newspaper, iMaverick, launching soon in SA

8 Jun 2011

iMaverick, Africa and South Africa's first subscription-based premium daily newspaper designed specifically for the iPad, will launch in August 2011. But that's not all - readers who sign up for two years will receive an iPad 2 (R395 pm for the wifi-only 16GB version or R499 pm for the 3G 32GB version) bundled with their subscriptions. [video]

First African daily iPad newspaper, iMaverick, launching soon in SA

Says Branko Brkic (@brankobrkic), Daily Maverick founder and imaverick.co.za iMaverick editor, "Set to debut in August 2011, iMaverick will be a daily newspaper for South Africans who care about their brains and want to understand what's happening in the world for the cost of a daily cup of coffee.

"Original, crusading journalism and opinion"

Branko Brkic

"Anyone can distribute information - all you need to do is subscribe to a news agency and cut and paste articles. We take a radically different approach with original, crusading journalism and opinion that seeks to challenge people's thinking. We create understanding.

"We'll be making full use of the iPad's technology, glorious colour, full connectivity and multimedia capabilities to again challenge the way that news is reported on in this country and reshape the boundaries of journalism with our subscription-based newspaper."

The cost of subscription-only will be announced closer to the launch date. iMaverick will also work on the iPad 1 and any other tablet.

The team

Phillip de Wet

Phillip de Wet (@phillipdewet), deputy editor of Daily Maverick and iMaverick, will concentrate on iMaverick. De Wet, who has also been appointed editor of sister title Free African Media, was until recently the editor of the Daily Maverick's First Thing; since Monday 6 June, Hong Kong-based Simon Williamson (@simonwillo) has taken over as editor of this email newsletter, which will remain as is.

The names of rest of the iMaverick team of journalists will be revealed two weeks before launch, and will eventually total around 25 journalists. "We will extend our editorial team to include some big name journalists to deliver this country's daily iPad newspaper every weekday from mid-August," says Brkic.

"iMaverick will radically extend the beats we traditionally cover, and will combine long- and short-form writing so readers can see all the important news at a glance, but also delve deep into the issues they care about."

Subscribers to the daily iPad newspaper can expect to see regular coverage of business, politics, current affairs, sport, entertainment, technology and health. According to Brkic, it's the next logical step with Daily Maverick, which will continue to be published at www.dailymaverick.co.za as a free offering for readers.

'Transforming the experience of news and content'

"The iPad, the most desirable device on the planet, is transforming people's experience of news and content. It makes sense that a subscription-based, daily iPad newspaper is the next generation of Daily Maverick. We've been credited for upping the game of providing news, analysis and commentary since we launched," adds Brkic.

After the demise of Maverick and Empire magazines in October 2008 and the rebirth online as the Daily Maverick in late 2009, the philosophy of offering the best quality news-content by an award-winning editorial team has seen the news and analysis site grow from a zero base to 100 000 unique visitors in 18 months, @dailymaverick has 10 460 followers and First Thing has 8250 subscribers.

A teaser ad campaign for the new title from the Daily Maverick stable began running on Monday 6 June on www.thedailymaverick.co.za and in First Thing.