It had to happen sooner or later. One of Apple’s partners for the iTablet project has spilled the beans, in spectacular style, on TV. Terry McGraw, CEO of publisher McGraw-Hill confirmed to CNBC that the tablet exists, will be unveiled tomorrow, and used to sell eBooks, presumably through iTunes. Read on for the details, and to see Steve Jobs’ cat let our of the bag.
Publishing boss McGraw went live on CNBC to discuss his company’s increased earnings, before wandering off topic near the end of the interview in response to a simple question about Apple’s tablet plans.
But instead of fobbing off the question with a simple “I can’t comment” he went right ahead, confirmed the device, volunteered information about its software, and the plans to sell textbooks through it.
“Very exciting,” said McGraw, apparently unaware that Apple was likely tearing up its contract with the publisher as he spoke. “They’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We’ve worked with Apple for quite some time and the tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system, so it’ll be transferrable,” he went on.
“What you’re going to be able to do now, we have a consortium of eBooks and we have 95% of all our materials in eBook formats. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market, the tablet is going to be just really terriffic.”
Wow. That’s quite some blabbing. See the whole interview below (although be warned the first two minutes are duller than a British summer).
TBC | £TBC | Apple, McGraw-Hill (via MacRumors)