McGraw-Hill absence a deliberate snub?

Several predicted announcements were missing from today's iPad event, reflection shows. Verizon for instance was not announced as a tablet partner, nor even as a new American iPhone carrier. For the forseeable future, both the iPad and the iPhone will be AT&T exclusives in the US.

The current list of major iBooks publishers omits McGraw-Hill, which is well-known for its educational textbooks, and was previously cited as a major catch for Apple. The reason for McGraw-Hill's absence is unknown, but it could be retaliation for an accidental reveal by the company's CEO on Tuesday night. A simpler explanation may be that deals have not been cemented, such as how the publisher's Connect service might be delivered.

While hands-on testing has shown that the iPad indeed runs iPhone 3.2 firmware, Apple has also mentioned nothing about whether the firmware will soon be available for the iPhone itself, or the iPod touch. iPhone 4.0 appears to be a long-term proposition, though given the history of the OS it is likely to be announced in March, the same timeframe for the iPad launch. At present iPhone 3.2 is missing rumored v4.0 features like multitasking.

The last two gaps in Apple's iPad event were expected iTunes changes, namely web-based library streaming. Apple is believed to be working on a way of streaming tracks from a person's existing music collection, thanks to the acquisition of Lala. The iTunes Store could also soon see cheaper TV episode pricing, or subscriptions, though the Financial Times suggests that deals would never have taken place before the tablet's debut.

by MacNN Staff