The Wednesday-unveiled Apple iPad has, by and large, been welcomed by the print industry, with book publishers predicting that the device will give a notable boost to the online reading model.

The half-inch-thick iPad, starting at $499, features a 9.7-inch touchscreen and enable the users to read books and newspapers, watch movies, and play video games.

During the unveiling of the new iPad and announcing the new iBooks app, the Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that as many as five of the six bigwig publishers - Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster – would be providing the requisite e-book content for the tablet device.

The cost of the e-books will range between $12.99 and $14.99 for most titles; and the publishers will take away 70 percent of sales proceeds, 

Noting that iBook, the new digital bookstore and app, is aimed at re-inventing the way in which books are read; and that it would tempt readers to easily shop for as well as read books online, Jobs said that the app will allow that readers to “carry literally thousands of books around.” 

Talking about the iPad, Simon & Schuster’s spokesman Adam Rothberg said: “We love it, it's a state of the art device that Apple always does well and now they have added books to their repertoire. From a publishing perspective, this is a great thing.”