News that Steve Jobs was definitely going to release a tablet PC this afternoon was greeted with horror and sadness by Mac fan boys who treated the news as if it was reading the last page of a murder mystery.

Macworld slammed Gizmodo for running a yarn which said publisher McGraw-Hill's Harold Terry McGraw claimed that Apple will take the wraps off a tablet this afternoon McGraw said his outfit had been working on a tablet with Apple for quite a while. He added that the tablet's operating system will be based on the iPhone OS, implying that all work done on developing apps for the iPhone OS will be easily transferable to the tablet. There will also be a "consortium of e-books" available, and 95 percent of McGraw-Hill's library will be available in that format.

All usual stuff that has been running for weeks but, forgetting that not conforming to a manufacturer's marketing campaign is what news is all about MacWorld whined “So much for the element of surprise”.

This is like that dark day when Apple's new iMac was to appear on the cover of Time the day Steve Jobs unveiled that desktop at that year's Macworld Expo. But the night before that keynote, someone at Time Canada pulled the trigger on the story too quickly, posting images and details of the iMac well before Steve Jobs took the stage. Oh dear and the world stopped turning because some magazine did not do what Steve Jobs said.

“It's unclear what Apple's reaction will be to McGraw-Hill's premature declaration. But I'm sure there's a former Time Canada employee who could probably tell Harold McGraw III just how cold the winters can get up north,” the rag imperiously says.

It is nice to be assured that you will not get any scoops from Macworld as that will be spoiling Steve Jobs's surprise. Sheeh are they journalists or press officers? For the record there is going to be little surprising about today's event. Apple has been leaking news about the tablet for months. The only thing surprising will be if the gizmo works, the date Apple will release it and how much cash and mark-up Jobs is going to screw the fanboys dumb enough to buy one.