MCGRAW-HILL's CEO confirms iPhoneOS based tablet will be announced tomorrow

In a live TV interview MCGRAW-HILL's CEO confirmed that Apple will introduce an iPhoneOS based tablet device. He also mentioned that MCGRAW-HILL has been working with Apple for quite some time.




UPDATE: I first saw this on Wired and noticed that it was also on MacRumors. In a couple of hours it was all over the net. I guess some people at Apple must be pretty upset by now.

Zinio for the iPhone or an Apple Tablet?

Today I got an email notification of the release of a Zinio application for the iPhone.  For those of you that haven't run across Zinio, it is a visually oriented digital reader software.  It was primarily focused on magazines but has been diversifying into books and textbooks.


Zinio offers a very compelling reading experience with full colored digital magazines that look pretty much the same as they do on paper, including some nice age turning visual effects. While they do seem to offer more than one viewing mode, with a text only mode which seems designed to make it easy to read on a small screen, the whole thing begs for a larger screen.


With the release of this application coming just one week before Apple's media event it might just be that this application is an early release for the iPhone of an application that was already developed for Apple's supposed new Tablet like device.  It would make sense for Apple to seek out a content provider such as Zinio which can bring into the iPhone/iPod platform hundreds of highly regarded titles such as BusinessWeek, Newsweek, Popular Science, MacWorld, PCWorld, PC Magazine, etc.


A quick look at Zinio's website will get you a view of the new Zinio Library software which looks very much like iTunes, though it is probably just a convenient way of having millions of iPhone users familiar with how your software works. 


What do you think?

2010 will be a great year for eBooks

Here we are, 2010!  Last year was a good year for eBooks.  Lots of new readers on the market, lots of new users.  While there was some consolidation on the storefront side, with Barnes & Noble picking up FictionWise, there was  myriad new readers announced, including a very interesting looking one from Barnes & Noble itself. (See my previous post on this...)

Amazon took the Kindle to the world, with international shipping.  Sony introduced new models of its Sony Reader with more size, feature and pricing options. The new Pocket and Touch editions are speacially interesting as they add both a lower price and touch-enabled options.

Read more »