According to New York blog Capital and the New York Times, The Huffington Post unveiled the weekly iPad magazine at a press briefing, and said that the 'Huffington' magazine will come to the App Store on Thursday.

The magazine will be free of charge for the first month, and cost $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year thereafter, although users happy to supply the firm with their zip codes and email addresses will also be given four additional magazines free of charge.

The iPad magazine is an interesting development, because far from being a copy of the Huffington Post website, it has been built separately and is already been worked on by 24 full-time staff. These folk are thought to include designers from Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Fortune and Men's Health, as well as former editors of Huffington Post itself.

Sources say that work began on the publication last fall, but claim that Huffington’s strategy for the tablet magazine has shifted slightly since then.

The initial plan was to launch Huffington as a free app with stories coming directly from huffingtonpost.com, but that approach has been passed over in favor of exclusive content and a paid-for edition. The magazine will carry the content you'd expect in a print edition; features, columns, commentary and reviews, as well as the ability to share stories.

Huffington’s first issue is a preview copy and will be available on Thursday. This particular issue is being sponsored by Toyota does feature some content that has originally appeared on the website. The Huffington magazine is expected to be published every Friday.

Huffington Post executive editor O’Brien told reporters at the event that more tablet magazines could also be coming in future. “We have talked about having a stable of apps, a stable of magazines," he said. "That's something we're going to be aggressive about."