The Globe and Mail has released its new iPad app, with a free trial thanks to a handful of big sponsors.

The Globe started planning the app, developed by Toronto-based Spreed, in April and recently completed several weeks of testing.

Angus Frame, vice-president of digital for the Globe and Mail, said that the key to the app’s development and relatively quick journey to market came with the realization that it would be a work in progress for the foreseeable future.

“The iPad is still a very new device,” he said, adding the Globe had discussions internally and with other media companies to try and determine how users will interact with the content.

“Should we be replicating the printed product or the web experience? Is it a unique hybrid? Many of the things we discussed would be unknown until we actually have a product in the market and can watch how people interact with it. It was critical to accept that this first version of the app is an important step but by no means the end product.”

For the first two months the new app is free thanks to three primary advertising partners GM Canada, Infiniti and Capital One. The sponsorship is part of a multi-platform deal that also allows users access to the Globe‘s other mobile inventory free for two months.

Frame pointed out a few aspects of the iPad app that the Globe adapted especially for the platform. “We knew the screen was ideal for the presentation of photo journalism, so we’ve integrated photography by drawing out our daily ‘Day in Pictures’ gallery,” he said. “It’s also a great reading device so we have an area called Featured where we can highlight stories that are particularly good reads. A mobile or web user commonly reads a few paragraphs and moves on, whereas we think iPad users will spend some more time with the content so we want to offer up that Globe journalism that works well on the platform.”

Frame expects the app will get at least one million page views in its first month. There will be a marketing push behind the new offering starting in August.

And while it just launched, Frame said they are already working on updates.

“It’s just about having—much like our mobile apps—regular series of releases to continually improve the app based on business and editorial needs, user feedback and changing technology.”