MacRumors

paidContent:UK reported earlier this week on a presentation from Penguin Books CEO John Makinson showing his company's vision for the future of eBooks on the iPad. Makinson's presentation highlighted Penguin's goal of embedding interactive content such as audio and video into its eBooks, as well as the inclusion of even more advanced features such as chats between readers.

Interestingly, Penguin is even looking to push things beyond what the EPUB format used for Apple's iBookstore can support, meaning that the company is planning to launch much of its content as applications rather than eBooks. It is unclear how that strategy will mesh with Apple's plans for its centralized iBookstore.

"We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we're now talking about.

"So for the time being at least we'll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs."

In addressing Penguin's relationships with Apple and other eBook distributors, Makinson noted that the 30% revenue sharing split with distributors pushed by Apple as an extension of its existing App Store is better than the 50% split seen for print agencies, indicating that his company is happy with the arrangements. That happiness apparently has not stopped book publishers from noting that it could be argued that Apple should have to pay them for content based on its need to drive device sales, although that tactic has obviously not worked.

A video of the demo played during Makinson's presentation has also been posted.

For those unfamiliar with this currently PC-only software, Steam is a digital distribution system for PC games. Essentially, a PC game App Store. The Steam storefront allows users to purchase from over 1000 titles and download them straight to their computer. Steam also provides digital rights management, auto-updates and community features for the games installed. Besides Valve's own games, major 3rd party developers including EA, Activision, SEGA and many more distribute their games on the system. Steam has been around since 2002, but in the past few years has really gained significant momentum and market share.

Part of Steam's popularity has been on the strength of Valve's own offerings which include Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. Here's an old teaser trailer for their critically acclaimed Portal game:

Now, given all this, it does not mean that other non-Valve Steam games will necessarily be coming to the Mac. It would be up to each developer to make that decision. iPhone and PC Steam developer NimbleBit, however, is already considering moving their kart racer Zero Gear to the Mac based solely on these announcements.

"The arrival of Steam on the Mac platform would make porting our PC game Zero Gear to Mac much more feasable and attractive. This could be a chance for many independent iPhone developers to test the waters of desktop game development as well.", writes Ian Marsh of Nimblebit.

It could also open the door up to existing Mac-specific developers to have a new digital distribution system to Mac gamers.

Last week, Valve Software generated some excitement among gaming fans who noticed Mac OS X menu components and other items in the most recent release of the company's Steam distribution platform for the PC. Combined with reports of Valve recruiting Mac engineers, the evidence suggested that Valve may be planning to make a move into the Mac platform.

MacRumors today received a teaser image from Valve appearing to show Gordon Freeman, protagonist of Valve's Half-Life video game series, with an Apple logo on his chest. The image was accompanied with the following explanation: "In anticipation of an upcoming announcement from Valve."

Update: MacNN received a different teaser image showing robotic characters from other Valve games mimicking Apple's "Get a Mac" ads starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. The report suggests that we may see an announcement at next week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The image here represent turrets from Team Fortress 2 and Portal:

Update 2: A third image has surfaced at Shacknews with Team Fortress 2 reference:

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on comments from Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of parent company News Corp., who noted that the newspaper will be present on the iPad and that Apple has provided the company with access to one of the tablet devices. The newspaper's iPad device is apparently kept under very tight security overseen by Apple itself.

Mr. Murdoch said the Journal planned to be on Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet computer. "In fact, we've been allowed to work on one, and it's under padlock and key. The key is turned by Apple every night," he said in response to a question. "But we will be on that with The Wall Street Journal." Mr. Murdoch said he believed in a year or so there will be a half dozen or more devices on which consumers will be able to receive newspapers and other media.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently traveled to meet with executives at The Wall Street Journal and other publications in order to sell them on the promise of the iPad. Jobs' visit to the Journal also reportedly included arguments against the use of Flash on Apple's mobile devices, making the case to newspaper executives that they should embrace alternative technologies.

Billboard reports that Apple has been pressuring music labels over their participation in Amazon's "Daily Deal" program that has allowed them increased exposure and sale pricing on Amazon's MP3 download store. Apple's primary objection has been Amazon's push for one-day exclusives on new releases offered through the program, an offering that has placed Apple's iTunes Store at a disadvantage for early sales of some major releases.

Sources say that iTunes representatives have been urging labels to rethink their participation in the Amazon promotion and that they have backed up those warnings by withdrawing marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals.

The report notes that the impetus for Apple's complaints came from the release of Mariah Carey's "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel", released one day early by Amazon and priced at $5.99 as part of the Daily Deal program last September. For its part, Amazon has reportedly backtracked on the program by allowing labels to participate without requiring the one-day exclusive and thereby hopefully avoiding the wrath of Apple. Apple has apparently continued to complain, however, about the marketing agreements that are part of the Daily Deal program.

"They are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got,' " says a major-label executive who has been following the situation.

According to sources in the industry, the relationship between the labels, Apple, and Amazon remains "fluid", with some labels refusing to participate in the Daily Deal program while others have opted to take advantage of the publicity available through Amazon for releases for which Apple has not offered prominent publicity in the iTunes Store.

TechCrunch reports that a Google spokesperson issued a statement yesterday indicating that the company will "stand behind" handset manufacturer HTC in its patent dispute with Apple.

"We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it," a Google spokesperson emailed us.

Apple's lawsuits against HTC have been seen primarily as an attack on Google's Android operating system, for which HTC is the largest handset manufacturer. Throughout the legal filings related to the Apple's lawsuits, the company distinguishes between alleged infringements by HTC's Android-based handsets and its Windows Mobile-based devices, suggesting that the Android operating system itself is a defining characteristic of at least one class of infringing devices.

A little odd that Google would proactively send us a statement for something they're not technically involved in. But, as we're all well aware, this suit is much more about Google's Android operating system than HTC. And it seems that Google is well aware of that too.

As we noted earlier, the clear focus of the suit centers around the HTC devices that are Android-based, including the Nexus One, the Magic/myTouch 3G, the Dream/G1, the Hero, and the Droid Eris. And in fact, with the Nexus One, Google worked closely with HTC to make the device, and is completely in control of selling it.

Apple's suit filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware seeks an injunction against infringement of Apple's patents by HTC, as well as triple damages and maximum interest as determined by a jury. Meanwhile, Apple's complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission seeks a halt to imports of a number of HTC handsets, a common tactic used by parties in patent disputes to encourage resolution.

Earlier this week, research analyst Peter Misek of Canaccord Adams claimed that a "manufacturing bottleneck" at Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn/Hon Hai Precision would result in constrained supplies (300,000 versus a rumored planned 1,000,000) of the iPad at its launch later this month. The report had also suggested that the shortages could be severe enough to result in a delayed launch, although an Apple spokesperson quickly denied that claim.

DigiTimes today reports that Foxconn's suppliers for the iPad are seeing no changes to their delivery of components for the device and expect that Foxconn will be able to ship 600,000-700,000 units this month and an additional one million units next month.

In response to reports that initial volumes of Apple's iPad in late March will be lower than originally planned and the launch will be only in the US market because production by Foxconn Electronics has been delayed, Foxconn's component suppliers have said their supplies are on schedule and Foxconn should be able to ship 600,000-700,000 iPads in March and one million units in April.

While Foxconn refused to comment on the reports, supplier sources also confirmed that there should be no launch delay for the device.

iPhone line photo by goodrob13

We have heard whispers the Apple is planning on launching the iPad at retail stores on Friday, March 26th at 6 p.m. in similar fashion to the original iPhone launch.

A blog post from the Examiner now makes similar claims of a March 26th launch date with Apple store employees getting training on the device starting on March 10th. The author also claims that the commercials will begin airing on March 15th. Finally, those who camp out for the iPad will receive a "special gift".

The 3G enabled version of the iPad will follow the Wi-Fi iPad launch by about 30 days, according to Apple.

CNet reports that Apple's plans for cloud computing could go well beyond music. Apple is said to have been in negotiations with some of the major film studios to offer streaming video service to users.

Apple has told the studios that under the plan, iTunes users will access video from various Internet-connected devices. Apple would, of course, prefer that users access video from the iPad, the company's upcoming tablet computer, the sources said.

The move makes sense in light of the iPad device which offers a nice video consumption device, though without a lot of onboard storage, maxing out at 64GB. It seems Apple has lot of convincing to do, however, as movie studios are working hard to avoid locking their content into one particular platform. Movie studios would prefer content purchased on one device could also be used on other devices.

Apple has been making apparent moves into streaming content with the acquisition of LaLa media and their North Carolina data center, but previous rumors had focused primarily on music streaming.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on comments made today by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson at an investor conference in which he noted that he expects Apple's iPhone to be an important part of the carrier's offerings for "quite some time". Stephenson did not address, however, whether the company is expecting to lose its exclusivity for the iPhone in the U.S. in the near future.

Stephenson also noted that he is pleased with the progress AT&T has made on its network, particularly in New York City and San Francisco, where users have been troubled by poor performance. In addition to voice quality issues, which Stephenson noted should be greatly improved by mid-year, AT&T has also been working to increase data capacity, with the company now handling half of all wireless data traffic in the United States.

Another topic of conversation at the conference was "variable pricing models", which Stephenson said are inevitable. The comments are reminiscent of similar talk from AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega last December that led some to believe that tiered data pricing was imminent. AT&T moved to downplay such speculation in the following weeks and may find itself again having to clarify Stephenson's comments on the matter today.

One of the issues AT&T faces is the large amount of wireless traffic the iPhone generates. He said that AT&T is carrying half of the nation's wireless data traffic.

He said that carriers will eventually move to a "variable pricing model," and that it was inevitable that heavy users should pay more than low users. He added that emerging market products such as an electronic reader already follows the variable model.

On the issue of LTE (4G) deployment, Stephenson reported that AT&T is "not in a tremendous hurry" to deploy the next-generation network, noting that the technology is still being developed and widespread availability of products taking advantage of the technology is not expected until 2012.

In a separate report, Reuters notes that Stephenson also addressed Apple's iPad, claiming that he sees the device as being mainly a "Wi-Fi driven product". The report curiously explains that Stephenson does not expect the iPad to generate significant numbers of new "subscriptions" for AT&T, although customers are expected to use "prepaid" services.

While AT&T has agreed to provide wireless connections to the iPad tablet computer, Randall Stephenson said he does not expect the device to result in many new service subscriptions for AT&T as consumers will instead use Wi-Fi or prepaid services, where they do not subscribe to a service contract.

It is unclear what these terms are referring to, as Apple has only announced that AT&T will be providing month-to-month, contract-free data services for the iPad that could be considered both "prepaid" and "subscriptions".

A new Apple job listing posted yesterday confirms just that, with the company looking to hire a manager for its "Asia Pacific & Canada" iBooks division. While the exact geographic coverage for the position is not given, it appears at this time to be primarily focused on Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with other countries also in the mix.

The role includes: working with management, regionally and in Cupertino to determine strategies and priorities for iBooks in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries; identifying content providers to target, establish and develop relationships; working with legal and production teams to finalize relationships and secure content; and coordinate launches with partners, production, and marketing. This role will also be responsible for marketing the books offering on the iBooks store by coordinating with Apple's production teams, the marketing team, and the production and marketing teams of partners.

The successful employee holding the position will be based in either Markham, Ontario (outside of Toronto) or Sydney, Australia.

Apple is also beefing up its broader iBookstore staffing, with brand-new job postings seeking publisher account managers, including one focused on independent publishers, as well as several operations-side and marketing employees. Apple is presumably also pursuing international deals in countries other than those covered by the "Asia Pacific & Canada" division, although there are no currently open positions listed for such regions.

The iPhone team is looking for a manager to work on supporting next generation mobile advertising. This will involve managing a talented team of developers working on the frameworks included in the iPhone SDK. The ideal candidate will be responsible for the day to day management of the engineering, as well as related frameworks. He or she will spend much of their time interacting with the engineering team, program managers, other engineering teams, and executives. We need someone who is comfortable working in a fast paced environment with rapidly changing priorities.

A glance at Apple's jobs site reveals several other newly-posted positions related to mobile advertising, including a user experience/design engineer and concept designer based in Cupertino and a web user interface developer in Boston.

Apple purchased mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless, which is based just outside of Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts, several months ago and has reportedly been looking to revolutionize mobile advertising to address Apple CEO Steve Jobs' view that "mobile ads suck".