iPad versions: Reality or concepts?

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on March 12, 2010 at 4:55 PM

Newspapers are eager for the iPad to hit shelves April 3, but most iPad versions are still just concepts, paidContent:UK reported today.

Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf has posted its concept video on YouTube, while another publisher in the Netherlands said publishers have been having "secretive" meetings with Apple ahead of the iPad launch.

"But, for all the iPad concepts we've seen lately, many are still only that. De Telegraaf's video is a corporate montage designed to depict a forward-thinking multi-platform publisher, but it doesn't exist," paidContent's Robert Andrews pointed out.

Rupert Murdoch earlier this month promised the Wall Street Journal would be available on the iPad, and The New York Times has been working with Apple from the beginning. U.S. publisher Gannett Co. and magazine publisher Conde Nast were some of the first to create iPad versions. However, Gannett stated its national flagship, USA Today, will release an iPad version "in the near future," according to MediaPost.

When the iPad does hit shelves, will readers find a plethora of newspapers customised on the device, or will they have to wait for concepts to materialise?