THE public broadcaster's first iPad application will be focused on delivering news content rather than its popular iView online catch-up television portal.
The ABC has been vocal about its plans to bring iView to the iPad but the broadcaster's first priority would be to deliver a dedicated news application, a spokeswoman for the broadcaster said.
She confirmed that the iView service would be housed in a separate application.
"The ABC's first iPad app will be launching shortly after the iPad becomes available in Australia. The ABC iPad app will feature ABC News, TV and Radio content and is coming soon," an ABC spokeswoman said.
Industry sources said that bringing the iView service to the iPad would present a tougher technical challenge as the portal's Adobe Flash web interface and video format won't run on the device due to Apple software restrictions.
ABC multi-platform chief Arul Baskaran acknowledged the problem but said that the broadcaster had solved the problem by converting its video into a format suitable for the iPad and building a new interface for the application from scratch.
He confirmed that the broadcaster was also giving consideration to dropping the Adobe interface in order to make iView as platform and device agnostic as possible.
ABC News joins a growing list of media outlets scrambling to embed their brands on the new platform.
News Limited plans to make a digital version of The Australian available on the iPad when the device is launched on May 28, with other mastheads in the group expected to follow. Fairfax Digital has also confirmed it will develop applications for its mastheads.
Men's Health and Women's Health will be the first of Pacific Magazines titles to get the digital nod with others under consideration. Men's magazine GQ Australia plans to make its June-July issue its debut for the iPad.
For many of these titles the application publishing platform will smash geographic distribution boundaries and place them in international magazine shelf alongside glossies from Time, Hearst and Conde Nast.
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