14 DAY TRIAL // A reputable source of Apple insider information, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber indicates in a blog post that HP’s new HP TouchPad may run up against the iPad 3's launch this fall, though not confirming any knowledge of the Apple tablet itself.
Instead, Gruber says it’s his belief that Apple will want to move the iPad refresh cycle to autumn, putting a third revision to the tablet on track for launch later this year.
[admark=1]“If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3,” he wrote, referring to HP’s plans on the tablet front.
“Thus, my gut feeling is that Apple will move the iPad to a September release schedule, alongside the iPods,” he noted.
In a follow-up, Gruber outlines that Apple’s fall announcement, if it turns out to be true, will not be the iPad 2, which everyone expects to debut momentarily.
“But they wouldn't want to wait over a year and a half from the announcement of the original iPad to announce the second one -- not with these stakes, and not with so many serious competitors trying their best to catch up,” Gruber wrote.
Cited by MacRumors, TechCrunch also claims to they have heard that Apple would be launching a new iPad in fall 2011.
Specifically, the tech site claims to have learned that “this ‘fall surprise’ is related to this would-be iPad 3.”
It adds that Apple’s plans to release one iteration of the iPad in the next few weeks appear to have remained intact, while the iPad 3 announcement is set to “blow the doors open” again.