New York Times Reportedly Working Closely With Apple on Tablet App

As part of a broad report in advance of Apple's media event scheduled for Wednesday, The Los Angeles Times claims that a team of New York Times employees has been traveling to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California to work on a new version of the newspaper's iPhone application offering video and optimized for a large-screen tablet device.

Apple has been slowly amassing digital reading material for the forthcoming device. A team from the New York Times has been working in Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters in recent weeks, developing a large-screen version of the newspaper's iPhone application that incorporates video for the yet-to-be-unveiled device, according to one person with knowledge of the matter. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment.

The claim is reminiscent of a story related by the developers of flight simulator application X-Plane 9, who were invited to Cupertino to work alongside Apple's engineers to port their application to the iPhone in hopes of demonstrating it at the company's "Let's Rock" media event in September 2008.

The New York Times has long held a close relationship with Apple in regards to the iPhone platform, frequently finding itself featured in demonstrations at media events and keynotes. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. revealed last week, however, that he will not be attending Apple's media event, and when pressed for comment on Apple's involvement with the newspaper's plans for restructuring online access, said only "Stay tuned."