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flyguy206

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 5, 2008
583
0
Because they're special and probably were contacted about some sort of licensing agreement before the release. Clearly Apple wanted certain content available immediately to customers when the iPad launched.

so would it be safe to say that apple did this with people we don't know about?
 

wyneken

macrumors regular
Feb 26, 2010
234
0
The great State of Maine
so would it be safe to say that apple did this with people we don't know about?

I think Steve Jobs or the app-development guy DID say this, more or less, at the product announcement. They said something to the effect that "We've been working with developers to bring their ideas to the iPad, and we've invited SOME of them here today to show us what they're planning for this exciting new product." Then we had a brief parade of 6 or 8 developers, including the NY Times, to show off their apps.

We don't know how many developers were invited to Cupertino. Flurry Analytics reported that they had detected (how, I don't know) about 50 unidentified devices running iPhone OS, presumed to be iPads, in use at the Cupertino campus in the weeks before the announcement in January. Maybe there have been a lot more since, or maybe not so many. As usual with Apple, we just don't know.

As to why the NYT in particular, I'd say it's probably two things. One, it's the flagship newspaper in the U.S. and therefore its presence on stage gave the iPad a kind of instant respectability among a certain audience in the publishing and media communities, which Apple is trying to court. And two, the NYT was pretty quick in developing an iPhone app that has proven popular and has probably increased the paper's reach into a new audience of people who like to get their news online -- thus providing an example that Apple hopes other traditional periodicals will follow.
 

bbydon

macrumors 6502a
May 18, 2005
587
94
ATL
They most likely only got to use the SDK at apple 3 weeks before. Even then the ipad design in the SDK was probably different from what the SDK has now.
Thats my guess.
 
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