Steinbrenner's death absent from print issue

The current issue of Sports Illustrated for the iPad makes a substantial break from the latest paper magazine, reports observe. Whereas the latter's cover story deals with NBA player LeBron James, the iPad edition concentrates on George Steinbrenner, the New York Yankees owner who died on Tuesday morning. The paper copy went to print on Monday, just hours before Steinbrenner's death.

SI editor Terry McDonnell explains that the iPad update was born after a quick conversation. "We all sort of looked at [each] other, and said, ‘you know, this is an opportunity to do this,' and why wouldn’t we?," McDonnell says. He adds that while the company does not plan on making such updates a habit, other big stories may justify future experiments. People who already have the LeBron-themed issue of SI will either have to buy the iPad copy or wait for the article to appear at SI.com later this week.

Publishers are still exploring the limits and possibilities of the iPad, considered a potentially lucrative market. This includes testing different pricing and distribution schemes, or even changes to a magazine's structure. Wired took steps in all three areas with the second issue of its iPad magazine, for instance paring down filesize to under 340MB.

by MacNN Staff