After two years in the marketplace the Toronto Star announced on June 26 that it is shifting gears after they could not replicate the success of the La Press tablet app model in the Toronto market. The Star Touch is being discontinued and being replaced with a universal app that will work on smartphones as well on August 1, 2017. This has resulted in layoffs of the Star Touch team.

Two factors may have contributed to its lack of success in the market, first of it was tablet only app and did not take into account the prominence of smartphones as a primary device as tablets are being shoved to the side. The second is the depth of competition, french language media has less competition and show better response rates because of this, but in the intensely competitive market of Toronto it is more unpredicatble. The tablet app did win the News App of the Year in 2015 from the Apple Store so it was a good product.

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