• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, November 11, 2011

If you are looking for the right $157,000 Aston Martin for that special someone this holiday, then look no further than The Daily’s Gift and Gadget Guide for the iPad, which was released yesterday. The wish book for the well-heeled may not be quite at the level of the old Neiman Marcus annuals of extravagance, but it has some of those aspirations. Editors Peter Ha and Daniel Dumas say in the intro that their job was to scour the catalogs of every manufacturer they could get their hands on to find the best of the best toys for big people. “Simply put, if it is in this guide, it’s awesome.”

Their editorial modesty aside, the guide is pretty damned cool and demonstrates that even without high-grade card stock paper and embossed lettering, an app can get the luxe look and feel of a high-end catalog. The sections on Household, Outdoor, Mobile, Apps & Games and Garage items are fronted by beautiful illustrations from British artist Matthew Lyons. They invoke the great age of "Mad Men" retro- "Jetson" American, when conspicuous consumption of futuristic stuff was, well the point, wasn’t it? The sections are also punctuated by little “Paleofuture” blurbs from the author of the same-named blog, each recalling a past prediction of the future that fizzled. Apparently we have been waiting for 3D TV since the 1930s, and then there is the more aromatic variety of prime time we were supposed to be sniffing by now: Smell-o-Vision.

Much like The Daily itself, the Gadget Guide brings a high level of magazine prose and imagery to the touch screen. Full-display splash pages of a section of items pop up ID tags when you tap the screen, and then you scroll downward to get well-manicured prose for each product as well as sharing tools and a direct link to the buy opportunity.

There are an awful lot of house ads for The Daily in this free app, although sponsors range from a LogMeIn to Verizon as well. All in all it is a handsome piece of work that is less about multimedia bells and whistles than old-fashioned, lush look and feel -- and editorial panache.