Chicago Sun-Times posted an article in which Andy Ihnatko talks about a startup company called LongBox which plans to offer an iTunes or Amazon Kindle style store for purchasing and viewing the latest editions of comics on the go. The product will be launched in November, and is rumored to have inked a secret key partnership that centers around Apple’s tablet.

“There are signs that (Apple) is getting into the digital comic book market,” he said. “Which is tantamount to saying ‘Apple is helping to create a digital comic book market.’”

“Ihnatko’s speculation is based on the fact that the LongBox CEO told him that the company’s unannounced partnership is with a manufacturer who has received high-profile coverage of upcoming hardware on a number of technology Web sites. Rantz Hoseley said that the company in question is the only one that would give LongBox “a multinational launch with literally millions of installed users,” which Inhatko assumed will be the iTunes Store.”

Even though they are still rumors, it seems more and more clear that the forthcoming Apple tablet device will serve as an e-reader. The New York Times seems to be involved in Apple’s plans to bring some kind of an e-reader on the market. Some publishers, like Time Inc, are already planning to create a digital store for magazines and other publications to sell their content. The publishers hope to make their content compatible with the tablet computer. Talks between them and the Cupertino California company have had disagreements over the business model to adopt.

“Apple’s new iTunes LP format has already been used to distribute one digital comic: “Tyrese Gibson’s Mayhem.” The $1.99 album features three comics, an exclusive song, a 45-minute “making of” video, storyboards, alternate covers, concept art, desktop wallpapers and more.”

click on the picture for a bigger format

In other news, some people are speculating about the Apple tablet’s name. Apparently the name “iTablet” will not be the real name of the device. A table shows that all the big product releases with a name starting with an ‘i’ have a single syllable. That means that Apple’s tablet is either going to break that rule or have a completely other name. “iTablet” has two syllables. Snippets.com thinks the name could be “iPad” or “iTab”, but peoples comments suggest the name could also be “iMac Tablet” or “MacBook Touch”.

What do you think?

(Thanks to Jerry for the tip)