McGraw-Hill CEO Confirms Apple Tablet, iPhone OS Based, Going to Be “Terrific”
In an interview with CNBC, McGraw-Hill's CEO confirms that their textbooks will be on the Apple Tablet and it will be an iPhone OS based machine. When asked about their textbooks being on the Apple tablet, Terry MrGraw responds (2m 50s):
Context & Ripple Effects
Terry McGraw's CNBC interview converts months of rumor into on-the-record confirmation from a named content partner. It lands where the arc pointed: Gizmodo reported last September that the tablet was being positioned around newspapers, textbooks and magazines, and Boy Genius Report detailed an iPhone OS 4.0 build and 'iTablet' naming just a week ago. A major publisher now vouching for both the device and the OS is the strongest corroboration yet.
The Wall Street Journal's same-day pickup under a 'rewrite for publishers' headline shows how quickly this is being read as a media-industry story rather than a gadget one. With the rumored secondhand quote that Steve Jobs called the tablet 'the most important thing I've ever done,' and an investment-banking base case of 5 million first-year units, expectations are already priced high before Apple has said a word.
First-order effects
- McGraw-Hill has publicly committed its textbook catalog to an unreleased Apple device, tying a century-old publisher's education business to hardware Apple hasn't announced or priced.
- Apple loses control of its own launch narrative: a partner CEO confirming the OS base two days before any announcement forces the company to respond or let the leak define the product.
Second-order effects
- Rival education publishers face immediate pressure to negotiate equivalent terms with Apple or risk ceding the digital-textbook channel to a first mover.
- If the tablet runs iPhone OS, the App Store becomes the default distribution gate for magazine, newspaper and textbook content — shifting pricing power from publishers to whoever controls the storefront.
Third-order effects
- A shared iPhone OS across phone and tablet points toward a single app-layer ecosystem where print-era publishers become app developers, and education content competes on storefront placement rather than sales-rep channels.
- If the pattern holds, content companies will increasingly anchor product roadmaps to unannounced hardware partners — trading secrecy norms for guaranteed shelf space at launch.
The trend: Book and periodical publishing is migrating from print channels to app-store-distributed digital editions built on Apple's iPhone OS platform, with content partners confirming devices before Apple does.