iPad newspaper plan's to launch next week

Turns out you’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s long-awaited iPad news service.

Apple and News Corp. have made a joint decision to push back next week’s planned launch, according to sources familiar with the companies’ plans. The delay is supposed to give Apple time to tweak its new subscription service for publications sold through its iTunes platform.

Plans to debut the iPad newspaper at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art next Wednesday have been tabled “for weeks, not months,” I’m told.

The issue isn’t with the app itself, which News Corp. executives and their proxies have been showing off over the last few weeks, but a new subscription feature that Apple is building into iTunes.

As I noted last month, the Daily was supposed “to use a new “push” subscription feature from Apple, where iTunes automatically bills customers on a weekly or monthly basis, and a new edition shows up on customers’ iPads every morning.”

A PR rep from News Corp., which also owns this Web site, confirmed the delay, but wouldn’t comment further. Apple declined to comment.