Report: New York Times Working With Apple on Tablet Version of Paper
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The New York Times is working at Apple headqaurters to tailor a version of its iPhone app for the much-expected tablet, according to a Monday report. The new version would highlight the product’s larger screen and video capabilities.
“A team from the New York Times has been working in Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters in recent weeks, developing a large-screen version of the newspaper’s iPhone application that incorporates video for the yet-to-be-unveiled device, according to one person with knowledge of the matter,” The Los Angeles Times reports.
The claim was made after New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told reporters he would not attend the Wednesday event. Sulzberger Jr.said only “Stay tuned” when pressed.
Although the LA Times report said Apple was “slowly amassing reading material for forthcoming device,” some publishing insiders Monday told the blog 9to5Mac that the pace had become very aggressive with Apple likely to announce “all of the major publishers” were on board.
The interview with “a few friends in the publishing business,” reveals it may be mid-2010 before Apple has “large libraries of material” available. The article also claims Apple sees its tablet as revolutionary, comparing its device to Amazon’s Kindle will be like the difference between black-and-white television and color. Apple may also use Wednesday’s event to press its “agency model” for payment over Amazon’s as a way to grab market share from the ebook leader.
Finally, despite all the anonymous chatter about Apple’s talks with publishers, the report said the company has never brought a prototype to the meetings.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
