The beleaguered land that was once a globe-spanning magazine empire could be about to receive the hypodermic boost that will get it back in the standing position during 2010. Both glossies – and even newspapers – hope they can benefit from the latest product to drop from the fruit-laden Apple tree.

The insider predictions are that the iPad – or tablet, or slate, there are various names being banded about as the pre-launch hype trails the January 27th unveiling – will forge relationships with some of the biggest names in print publishing and the association will lead to an ‘iTunes for magazines’, according to recent Guardian online reports.

Among those multi-media corporations who appear to have signed up to the project are Time Inc, Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith and News Corp, all US-located businesses, though Time Warner does own IPC, home to New Musical Express and Uncut.

With Germany’s Bauer in possession of the other major UK popular music magazine titles – Kerrang!, Q and Mojo – maybe it will be some little while before this America-centred project spreads its wings across the Atlantic and boosts our key rock and pop publications over here, too.

But with promises in the US that the Top 50 best-selling magazines – from Vanity Fair to The New Yorker and even the New York Times apparently allying with the SF computer giant and  joining the roster of would-be iPad publishers – could soon be online to digital readers, it seems unlikely that this bold venture won’t arrive in Europe in some form in the near future, as well.

Okay, so the digital book reader phenomenon has remained largely a Stateside feature, so far, but even that is gradually migrating to Britain with Amazon finally offering its Kindle product to UK customers, though still at a prohibitively high whack of $489 for the larger screen, $259 for the smaller.

Interestingly, while this gizmo is finally importable, the price remains in bucks rather than quids which suggests that the Kindle promotional push here is a somewhat half-hearted affair at present.

The cost of the new iPad is, of course, likely to be the biggest disincentive, at least at first, for potential buyers on this side of the pond. The US Apple launch seems sure to follow the usual pattern: slam a dollar price on the product – $1,000 is the expectation – and then unkindly convert that number to sterling for the Brits – a bit of an ouch at £1,000.

But, as with iPods and iBooks and iPhones, we’ll eventually see a slight fall in the price tag and all be swept along in the Apple cart no doubt. However, if this means that the collapsing news-stand is bolstered by a new raft of readers who buy their mags in the iTunes manner then supporters of print may see this latest tech trick as a vital lifeline to a floundering magazine marketplace.

Yet, to end on a note of warning, this idea may not be an instant saviour to the print industry. NME did launch a free digital version of its mag in early 2009, in league with media distributors John Menzies Digital. The short-term experiment was deemed uneconomic after only a few months so the iPad project may offer glimmers of light but few certainties.

The hope must be that Apple’s unwavering ability to produce irresistible objects of desire will be replicated here and turn young web-heads back to the notion that well-designed, well-written music magazines are actually worth investing in.

PS: Other news from the Jobs labs. Rumours abound that a product aimed at swashbuckling seafarers is in development. Thought to be an aid to pirates, buccaneers and others who may have lost eyes in sea battles, mutinies, aborted boarding raids or one-on-one cutlass duels, the iPatch, believed to aid both 3-D and peripheral vision, could be available as early as the late 15th Century.