Jan 28, 2011 09:03 GMT  ·  By

Apple and News Corp have teamed up to issue invitations to select members of the media, enticing them to attend a special event next week (Wednesday) to celebrate the launch of a digital newspaper designed specifically for the iPad - The Daily.

"News Corporation's Chairman & CEO Rupert Murdoch invites you to the launch of: The Daily," reads the invitation.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services, will join Murdoch on stage to make the official introduction.

The event will go live at 11:00 am EST, Wednesday, February 2nd at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue, according to the print on News Corp.'s invite.

AppleInsider recalls that The Daily was originally scheduled for a Jan. 19 release as News Corp's experimental push into digital-only publications.

Specifically, The Daily was scheduled to launch at a special event hosted at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The original intention was to have Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) on stage next to Murdoch, but Jobs has since taken a medical leave of absence to deal with some health problems.

The digital paper’s launch was postponed with various sources suggesting that the delays were due to the new subscription model that Apple has been working to implement in iTunes.

IPad magazines and newspapers haven’t had much success in attracting customers, let alone retaining them.

The main reason cited by analysts is the lack of a functional subscription model.

It has been confirmed by Murdoch himself that The Daily will cost $0.99 per week when it’s released, while Apple watchers forecast that Cupertino will extend a rumored subscription format to other publications that might be interested in such a deal.

Murdoch is known to have invested heavily into the digital newspaper.

He reportedly committed some $30 million to the project, and employed a staff of 100 people across offices located in New York and Los Angeles to get The Daily out on iPads.