There were many breathless proclamations in the leadup to the Apple iPad announcement. One of the most-repeated was "the Apple tablet will save publishing." The iBook store and ePub formats that have been unveiled look pretty sweet for books, but it looks like periodicals – newspapers and magazines – will have to follow the iPhone format of creating individual apps to get their content on the iPad.

This is a big missed opportunity, both for publishers and consumers. As a magazine editor, I'd love for people to be able to get our pubs in a big, easily delivered format such as this. There are other options for web-based viewing right now, but an 800-pound gorilla like Apple could impose a new standard on the industry and make the game easier to play for publishers in terms of production and distribution. And as a consumer, I love the idea of being able to subscribe to magazines (and read them) in such a way. Check out the linked story on TUAW.com for further commentary on a possible iMag store.

I downloaded and read the latest issue of GQ on my iPhone. Frankly, I love the idea and the presentation. All the content from the print version is there, plus some Web-only stories added into the app version. When you hold your phone in portrait orientation, you get a text-only view of the stories – it's really easy to read, and getting to the photos is also intuitive and quick. Flip the phone to landscape and you see the magazine as it was laid out, page by page. You can flip through every page to see the layout and photos as intended, and zooming in for more detail is simple. If there was a $10 a year subscription – as is advertised for the print version in the app – I'd be on board in a heartbeat.

Maybe Apple is still negotiating with the Conde Nasts of the world to launch an iMag store; as we've seen from the iPhone, Apple is willing and able to add new features prior to and after launch. YouTube was a late addition to the iPhone lineup prior to its launch, and of course the App Store came a year later. I sure hope magazines (and textbooks) are on the to-do list out in Cupertino.