McGraw-Hill CEO: "The tablet is going to be just really terrific"

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/26/mcgraw-hill-ceo-the-tablet-is-going-to-be-just-really-terrific/

by Anon84 • 16 years ago

63 77 16 years ago

Jobs has got to be pissed.

pmjordan• 16 years ago

Yeah, that's presumably the last time McGraw-Hill get to do any pre-release deals with Apple. It's not clear to me how that stunt is a net gain to them.

johnrob• 16 years ago

If e-readers are really going mainstream, McGraw-Hill will have a whole lot more to worry about than a sour relationship with Apple.

MrFoof• 16 years ago

Back in 2000 when ATI leaked information about a product, Apple promptly switched from ATI to nVidia GPUs for iMacs and Power Macs.

Jobs is not one to scorn. I can't imagine the reaction.

petercooper• 16 years ago

As pissed as he was at all the other "leaked" rumors and quotes that led to Apple filing lawsuits and firing a bunch of people? Nah. It's most likely a controlled leak. It's the day before the launch after all and a little "bit" on a news channel at the end of launch eve is only going to do the eventually launch good.

rykov• 16 years ago

Based on how blatant these "leaks" are getting, I'd say that Apple PR cooked this leeway into the NDA to elevate buzz.

Another example from 24 director of photography: http://twitter.com/rodneykiwi/status/8243364709

Everyone is saying "it's awesome - we are on board" but not much beyond that.

JunkDNA• 16 years ago

I'm with you on this. None of these "leaks" actually have any information that hasn't been well-established by other sources who are outside of the NDA.

In fact, Apple as much confirmed all these details themselves when they allowed the device to run with an internet connection earlier in the week and that analytics company (I'm forgetting the name) started seeing a 10-inch iPhone OS 3.1 device. That was no accident. Neither is this.

thras2• 16 years ago

iPhone-based OS. I wonder if everything will have to go through an App-store? Annoying if so.

tvon3• 16 years ago

I don't think there was ever a reasonable chance of anything else. I mean, if you're Apple, why do anything else? For the most part consumers clearly love to use the App Store. It has serious review process and barrier to entry issues, but those can be fixed over time (hopefully) and as long as there is an active audience, vendors will continue to come.

aaronblohowiak• 16 years ago

3-day turnaround times of late have mitigated most of the issues, if you aren't conflicting with Apple's interests.

thras2• 16 years ago

The problem is that there is a hell of a lot of general purpose software out there already that's never going to be worth the effort to port to a single device.

The iPhone has some nice apps, but runs nothing important to me in my professional life. And if the new tablet isn't going to be a useful work tool, why would I want it?

colinplamondon• 16 years ago

I hope so. Forcing all app downloads through a market where every screen defaults to the 'paid' tab is fantastic for paid app developers.

hexley• 16 years ago

I don't see how it's anything other than a net positive, you gain in security and ease of use for consumers.

If you're more hacker minded like this audience is, it's extremely trivial to jailbreak - the distinction being that it is totally independent and not sanctioned by Apple whatsoever. This is an important point.

After working in user support I can totally empathise with Apple's decision to keep the platform closed via the App Store. A large majority of the people buying these phones (ie, normal users - not geeks) are the ones who voluntarily install spyware on their PC's, click yes to every dialog box they see and execute random email attachments without thinking twice. The iPhone by far has the biggest mindshare, and a very hefty market share of any mobile communications device yet, and probably one skewed toward people with a large disposable income. It's constantly connected to the internet, has a connection to the phone network with an unlimited tab conveniently linked to your credit card, knows where you are and even in which direction you're facing. It knows who you talk to, who your contacts are...etc. I could go on. The point is this device and it's associated popularity is a fucking goldmine for the sort of people who write malware.

The App Store and it's uncompromising restriction is the final solution to keeping this cesspool of a software "ecosystem" off the platform.

Even if Apple provided an "Advanced" setting which gains you root access on your device the malware writers would simply instruct the clueless user to enable it, and I KNOW that 99.9% of people would do it without hesitation, for the promise of nothing more than a cheap thrill. It's based on the same psychology as that study where an alarming majority of people would tell you their password for a chocolate bar.

Oooh, kittens!!! cue screaming and convenient lawsuits targeting high-profile Apple when their phone bill arrives with a $50,000 total

jasonlbaptiste2• 16 years ago

McGraw Hill CEO found dead. Silver Mercedes with no license plate seen fleeing the crime.

novum3• 16 years ago

About 18 months ago I was driving on the 101 near Mountain View, headed north at 10pm or so, when a white Mercedes with no plate zoomed past me. I was doing 70, it must have been going over 100.

Always wondered if that was Steve.

umjames• 16 years ago

That was a prototype iCar. Crap, I've already said too much. They'll be after me now.

defen• 16 years ago

I'm confused...is it a well known thing that Jobs' car has no plates? Is that legal?

swombat2• 16 years ago

2 options:

1) Legally incompetent CEO of a major international corporation

2) Another controlled leak from Apple.

Which do you think is more likely?

seldo• 16 years ago

In all seriousness, option (1). There's no upside to leaking this 24 hours in advance of actually announcing it when hype is already at fever pitch.

And if you need examples of hilariously incompetent CEOs I refer you to the automotive and banking industries.

joezydeco• 16 years ago

Sure there's an upside. Now that the market knows media companies are involved, they all will spike tomorrow morning when the market opens.

You also prime the hype pump one more time. Remember that the financial types don't read tuaw, gizmodo, and engadget all day long looking for Apple rumors. I consider it the noisemaker they shoot off before the real firework show starts.

mrtron• 16 years ago

No upside?

That is a pretty outrageous claim. The upside is more press. The 'news' agencies/tabloids hate repeating material and need fresh information to talk about tonite before the big launch.

You have to throw some meat out to the lions, even if you are intentionally leaving them hungry.

mixmax• 16 years ago

While I agree on the automative industry I don't think the CEO's of the banking industry are incompetent. Unfortunately, I wish their actions could be excused by incompetence.

jasonlbaptiste2• 16 years ago

these are the guys that run the textbook market. ill go with option 1.

ynniv2• 16 years ago

I have to disagree: have you seen the money students drop on textbooks lately? The whole market has consolidated and now makes books worthless after only a year or two (hence small secondary market) by releasing new revisions with different exercises in them. Maybe publishing at large doesn't know their business, but the textbook companies are minting money.

alanthonyc2• 16 years ago

Applying Occam's razor here would support your conclusion.

swombat2• 16 years ago

Looks like you were right!

aichcon• 16 years ago

"Based on the iPhone OS" doesn't mean it IS the iPhone OS.

siculars• 16 years ago

I doubt that guy even knows what "based on the iphone os" even means.

novum3• 16 years ago

He did say "based on iPhone OS", but I wonder if he mis-spoke especially given that he's not necessarily tech-savvy.

In all likelihood, the tablet OS will be based on OS X in the same way that iPhone OS is - many of the same architectural underpinnings, but a completely different presentation layer that's optimized for the hardware.

Maybe he meant "based on OS X, like iPhone OS"?

dagw• 16 years ago

I'm pretty sure he meant "looks a lot like the iPhone OS". Most non-tech people cannot differentiate between the look of a desktop and the underlying OS. If it looks and acts like the iPhone, do you really think he's going to be wondering what kernel and low level libraries are actually running?

jamesbkel• 16 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. Perhaps he misunderstood Apple telling McGraw-Hill that 'your e-books will work on iPhone and iSlate' as '[the tablet is] based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable'.

tfincannon• 16 years ago

Over the weekend, Flurry detected iPhone apps with their analytics embedded running on a device with a tablet-sized screen. That makes it very likely the tablet is running iPhone OS.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1074409

xsmasher• 16 years ago

No, I think he was correct; it will probably run iPhone apps. I can't prove it, but if I could I'd be under NDA.

Shamiq• 16 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1079224

Seth joins the club.

whalesalad• 16 years ago

Wow so a vook is like a book with the distraction of video and a movie with the distraction of text.

omouse• 16 years ago

Sounds like a piss-poor idea.

gstar• 16 years ago

I'm sure he said 'the tabloid is going to be really terrific' at the end - misspoken, or is that the name of the tablet?

mogston• 16 years ago

I was thinking it would be called MacXXXX or something starting with Mac. But MacTablet, sounds too much like a McDonald's product.

jodrellblank• 16 years ago

I hope not - in the UK, tabloid carries the connotation "sensationalist journalism" (i.e. it's a bit of an insult to newspapers).

kordless2• 16 years ago

He used the term 'tabloid' a couple of times. I've been doing a bit of trademark searches the past few days, so I just popped over and did one on the 'tabloid' trademark: http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=7...

Look down at the prosecution history entries. There's a new entry for appointing a new attorney, just filed about a week and a half ago. Could be a coincidence, but then again...

tvon3• 16 years ago

Bat Boy Found in Cave, Has Apple Tablet.

greendestiny• 16 years ago

It's registered to GlaxoSmithKline and limited to class 051 "Cosmetics and toilet preparations", specifically described as PILLS. So probably a coincidence.

kordless2• 16 years ago

Just thinking about the whole Droid thing a few months ago. That was a completely separate class as well...

jonknee• 16 years ago

This just in: Guy with fancy title repeats everything we've speculated for months.

dschobel• 16 years ago

It's interesting because a) it's the first confirmation we have from a first-party source and b) the way the guy did it most likely just screwed his company out of any future Apple dealings.

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

My suspicion is that the tablet will incorporate some sort of display that is different from a "regular" display.

If forced to guess, I would choose something from PixelQi,com or one of the competing technologies.

dnsworks2• 16 years ago

You are all very, very good little consumers.

And Apple doesn't even have to pay you for generating it's hype.

zackattack2• 16 years ago

Dude, get over it. Let me guess: you grow all your own food and you abstain from all media (oh, hey, wait a second..)? Apple devices are useful problem-solving technology, and they bring a lot of joy to people's lives.

papachito• 16 years ago

> Apple devices are useful problem-solving technology

Probably.

> and they bring a lot of joy to people's lives

but that sounds a little to fanboy, "joy" to your life? really?

jordyhoyt• 16 years ago

I think I will probably avoid Hacker News tomorrow. At least one story every day has been ridiculous, I can't imagine what it will be like after the announcement.

McGraw-Hill CEO: "The tablet is going to be just really terrific"

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