The arrival of Apple’s iPad tablet in April 2010 was trumpeted as a pivotal, game-changing moment for the news industry. But did the iPad’s initial news applications live up to the hype? The author assigned college students to rate and analyze television, radio, newspaper, and magazine news apps during the iPad’s first year. This study, drawing from uses and gratifications theory, considers student ratings based on four factors: immediacy/urgency, nonlinear news presentation, multimedia, and reader interactivity. The apps scored highest in multimedia, but fell far short of students’ expectations for interactivity and immediacy. Too often for these millennials, the first year of iPad news apps amounted to digital “shovelware”—news outlets simply shoveling content from website to app, with minimal added value. This exploratory study provides early insight into how this “digital native” generation, crucial to the iPad’s long-term success, is reacting to the tablet as a news medium.
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