Terry McGraw, the chairman, president and CEO of McGraw-Hill, which publishes textbooks and magazines, appeared on CNBC today to talk about the company’s fourth quarter earnings. When asked if McGraw-Hill would makes its textbooks available for the Apple tablet, McGraw responded:

“Yeah, very exciting. Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while. And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

While Apple was already expected to announce a tablet at its event tomorrow, there was previously no confirmation of the existence of the device from such a credible, named source. Furthermore, McGraw also confirms that the tablet will run iPhone OS and that it will therefore be compatible with iPhone apps.

The premature confirmation may steal some of Apple’s thunder when it officially announces the device tomorrow, but by this point just about everyone was expecting the announcement anyway.

You can see McGraw’s response for yourself below:

[via MacRumors]

Apple released its financial results for first quarter 2010, which began on 26 September 2009 and ended on 26 December 2009. Revenue was $15.68 billion and net quarterly profit was $3.38 billion for the period, compared to revenue of $11.88 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.26 in Q1 2009. Apple generated $5.8 billion in cash during the quarter, according to Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, who expects revenue in Q2 2010 to drop to the $11.0 billion to $11.4 billion range. Steve Jobs notes that “Apple is now a $50+ billion company”.

Apple adopted new accounting standards this quarter, changing how revenue is recognized for certain items, particularly sales of iPhones and Apple TVs. Under the old principles, Apple accounted for the sales of these items using subscription accounting, which required it to recognize revenue from them over the products’ estimated economic lives. Under the new principles, Apple can account for largely all of the revenue from iPhones and Apple TVs when the products are sold.

Sales of both computers and iPhones were up, with the company selling 3.36 million Macs during the period, a 33 percent increase over Q1 2009, and 8.7 million iPhones, a 100 percent increase over Q1 2009. Sales of iPods were, however, down year-over-year, with 21 million being sold, an 8 percent decrease from Q1 2009.

Perhaps most interesting is that Steve Jobs all but confirmed the existence and announcement of an Apple tablet at the company’s event on Wednesday in his statement that “new products [Apple is] planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product…” Other new products are rumored to include a new iPhone model, as well as Apple’s routine upgrades to the hardware in its computers.

Flurry Analytics, which provides analytics tools to mobile app developers, has spotted the use of about 50 devices that seem to fit the characteristics of an Apple tablet. Flurry first noticed the device in September 2009, but says that it has been seen more frequently in the past month and that all of the devices are being used on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California.

One of the hotly debated aspects of the yet-to-be-announced device is the operating system that it will run. Some have suggested that it will run a full version of Mac OS X, while others have held that it will run iPhone OS and still others believe that it will run something in the middle. The devices that Flurry has witnessed are running iPhone apps, which is how they were able to identify them in the first place, which lends credence to the idea that the device will run iPhone OS or at least be compatible with it. Even more telling is that the devices are running OS 3.2, which is not far off from the current iPhone OS version number of 3.1.2. Flurry also notes Apple’s tendency to release operating system updates just before hardware releases.

Flurry has observed the use of 200 apps on the devices, which it has categorized and graphed:

Interestingly, Apple is focusing on testing gaming apps on the device, with entertainment and news & books also receiving attention. The heavy focus on news and books is in line with rumors that Apple has been talking with newspaper and book publishers about featuring their content on the tablet. However, comparatively little testing is being done in other areas, such as music and social networking.

Apple is expected to officially announce the device during its event on Wednesday, 27 January and begin shipping it in March.

Apple will be announcing its financial results for quarter 1 2010, which began on 26 September 2009 and ended on 26 December 2009, today at 2 p.m. PST (22.00 UTC) via a conference call webcast. To listen in all you need is QuickTime.

Apple warns “that comments made during this call may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties…” Maybe we will hear mention of the rumored Apple tablet, but that will most likely have wait until Apple’s big event on Wednesday.