It is now almost certain that Apple would be announcing a new mini iPad on the scheduled event at San Jose later today. What we are now hearing from usually trustworthy sources is that the mini iPad will be on sale and would start shipping from November 2, just a week after the announcement.
This is coming from a little birdie who passed on the vital information to TechCrunch. If that wasn’t all there have been a couple of other websites too that have reported November 2 as the launch date for the mini iPad.
Folks from over at Geeky Gadgets and 9To5Mac have also reported on the same date for the launch. Also, looking at Apple’s history with launching new products and making them available to the consumer within days, it is plausible that this news will end up being true after all.
Another reason for the very short interval between the announcement date and the release date is the fact that the holiday shopping season is approaching fast and the company would definitely want to take full advantage of the same. Also pertinent to note is the fact that Apple has had very good sales in this holiday season stretch and this year too, it is going to be no different. For example, during the last holiday quarter, Apple sold an incredible 15.43 million iPads. The number was just 7.33 million in the same period a year before that. It could well be possible that the new products scheduled to be launched today might just shatter these old records.
Apart from the iPad mini, Apple is also likely to debut the new version of iTunes in this very event. This is also of course apart from a new 13 inch MacBook Pro with retina display and a major update to iBooks. Anyway, we’d be watching this event with keen interest and report the proceedings here!