If you’ve got an Android tablet and have been wondering when Fairfax Media would get around to creating Android specific apps similar to and alongside its iOS app SMH and The Age versions, that day has come.
The apps are in beta, and will obviously improve over time and after customer feedback.
They also come with the allure of free access, at least for a limited time, before becoming paid apps, and are available in the Google Play Store, with the SMH here and The Age here.
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Fairfax said it developed the apps “to meet the demands of the fast-growing Android market” and hopes the “apps will enable us to engage with Fairfax audiences across Android tablet devices” while “offering increased tablet inventory for advertisers.”
Analysis from research firm Telsyte and its 2012 tablet report shows that over 2.6m Aussies already used a tablet, with half the population or 11m predicted to be using tablets by 2016, with over 1.4m tablets sold in Australia during 2011, or “an annual growth rate of more than 330%”, with Android tablets taking 30% of the Australian market.
App compatibility is listed as being the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Motorola Xoom and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer 201 – running either Android OS 3.1 and 3.2.
There’s no mention of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwhich tablets such as those from Samsung with the Galaxy Tab 2, other Asus Eee Pad models or even Kogan’s ICS 4.0 tablet, nor the Galaxy Nexus 7, shipping next week, and running Jelly Bean Android OS 4.1.
That said, Fairfax Media is no doubt working on SMH and The Age apps for those platforms too – a beta launch is a start, after all, more versions for more platforms surely still to come.
