Report: Apple Accelerating iPad Newspaper Subscription Efforts

Apple has been accelerating its efforts to bring a newspaper and magazine subscription service to the iPad, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Citing unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” the newspaper said that Apple was working on trying to get the service launched within the next two months.

Apple is working on the project from two fronts, according to the report. The first is trying to get more publishers signed up for the deal, an effort specifically described as being accelerated by Apple. At the same time, however, Apple is also still supposedly working on the technology of the service itself. Some of The Journal’s sources said that Apple may hold off for a launch in the first quarter of 2011 because of the technology issue.

While the sources weren’t named, the companies Apple is supposedly negotiating with were, and they include Time Warner Inc.’s Time Inc., Condé Nast, News Corp. (which owns The Journal) and Hearst Corp. The sources also said that Apple is telling these companies it has one major publisher signed up, but mum’s the word on exactly which major publisher that is.

The sticking point, as reported earlier, is Apple’s insistence that it control the subscriber data and the company’s desire to take 30% off the top in exchange for providing the service, the same deal Apple gives book publishers, app developers, record labels, and TV and movie studios.