A number of people called and emailed today asking my opinion of The Daily after today’s event, so I thought I’d write down my first impressions.

[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]As with any 1.0 product, there are some good and bad things about The Daily. I do believe we saw what is the future of publishing. Interactive stories, panoramic images, embedded movies — they are all part of what we expected from a next generation newspaper.

Even the startup screen of The Daily is more advanced than any app that came before it. The location aware background is kind of neat too — not necessary for a good newspaper, but there’s a lot to be said for looking after the details.

The carousel as a means of navigation is slick. However, it is either not well implemented or the iPad is too slow to handle it at this point. The carousel lags and is noticeably slow when you try to navigate, which gets frustrating after a while.

You don’t need to use the carousel to navigate your way through the newspaper. Menus on the bottom — or top of the page, depending on where you are — give you access to the different sections.

The Daily Carousel

Once inside The Daily, pages load much quicker. Even skimming through, most of the pages loaded really fast.

Images are the most vibrant I’ve seen on any news publication on the iPad and the layout is clear and concise. Turning to different sections brings up transitions on some pages, like text flowing in — it’s those details again. I like that.

A quick look at the staff of shows you that they put a lot of money into the content, which is where it should be for a publication like this.

One thing that bewilders me somewhat is that The Daily doesn’t have a technology section. This newspaper is on the cutting edge of technology, yet it doesn’t have a section dedicated to tech.

I mentioned that on Twitter this afternoon and some pointed me to the “Apps & Games” section. I’m glad that they have that, but that’s not the tech I’m looking for.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but it seems like a striking omission to me. I certainly hope they add a tech section sometime soon.

Overall, The Daily has a lot of promise. I do believe that Murdoch and his team are headed in the right direction and clearly they aren’t done yet. I think right now the biggest complaint is the carousel. Fix that, add a tech section and I’ll be happy.