With almost 1m downloads so far, The Guardian’s popular Eyewitness app for the iPad has been given a revamp and a new Eyewitness Premium service has been launched offering extra pictures every day.
For more than two years, the app has showcased one of the world’s most distinctive and provocative photographs per day, to provide a visual reflection of global events.
The printed Guardian Eyewitness series was revolutionary when it was introduced in full colour across the centre spread of the newspaper in 2005, and has proved just as popular on the iPad.
The Guardian Eyewitness app launched to great acclaim in April 2010 as one of the first apps available on the original iPad, and has since featured in the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year exhibition in London in 2011.
Launch of Eyewitness Premium
As downloads of the app approach 1m, users will be offered dozens of extra images each month through a new ‘Eyewitness Premium’ in-app subscription service, which costs stg£1.49 a month (or local currency equivalent).
Eyewitness Premium provides subscribers with Eyewitness Extra – three additional pictures per day selected especially for the app by The Guardian’s award-winning picture desk.
In addition to this, a subscription includes access to the new ‘Eyewitness Series’ collections, which present a single standout picture each day during major world events. The app will come pre-loaded with an Olympics collection, and a new collection will begin later this month with the London 2012 Paralympics.
Non-subscribers can still view, favourite and share the original Eyewitness image of the day, free of charge, as well as an archive of the most recent 100 Eyewitness images.
Each image is also accompanied by a “pro tip”, to give professional insights into the composition or technical specification of a particular image.
“We’ve been blown away by the global appeal of the Eyewitness app since its inception in 2010, and it’s been wonderful to see hundreds of thousands of people around the world engage with the photography we have chosen to feature on the app,” Roger Tooth, The Guardian’s head of photography, explained.
“Today’s new features mean that – while users will still be able to enjoy one image per day for free as they always have done – photography fans will now be able to enjoy more great news images from around the world every day,” Tooth added.
