More iTablet Rumors: Apple Set to Redefine Newspapers, Textbooks, Magazines

posted on Sep 30 by admin in the Firmware Version 3.0 category

Yes, the iTablet rumors just keep on coming, with the latest from Gizmodo being that Apple is in talks with traditional print publishers — text books, newspapers, and magazines, to redefine their industry they way they have music (and are trying to do with video).

Two people related to the NYTimes have separately told me that in June, paper was approached by Apple to talk about putting the paper on a “new device.” [...] A person close to a VP in textbook publishing mentioned to me in July that McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press are working with Apple to move textbooks to iTunes.[...] Apple also recently had several executives from one of the largest magazine groups at their Cupertino’s campus, where they were asked to present their ideas on the future of publishing.

Why?

The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video, interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. And with release dates for Microsoft’s Courier set to be quite far away and Kindle stuck with relatively static e-ink, it appears that Apple is moving towards a pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content. First, it’ll get its feet wet with more basic repurposing of the stuff found on dead trees today.

Gizmodo is also backing the rumored January announce date. What remains uncertain is, of course, the market for next generation print media. The Kindle was recently, and very publicly, panned by Princeton students as being unusable. Apple will have the benefit of the existing iTunes and iPhone ecosystem to fall back on, and buy them time — people can browse the web, listen to music, watch videos on the iTablet — but they’ll have to present a much more usable solution to get that print dinosaur cyberized for the next millennium.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

More iTablet Rumors: Apple Set to Redefine Newspapers, Textbooks, Magazines