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Apple has distributed invitations to a January 19 press event in New York City.
The invite features an Apple logo surrounded by landmarks from the city skyline.
"Join us for an education announcement in the Big Apple," the message reads.
According to The Loop's Jim Dalrymple, the event will take place at the Guggenheim Museum.
Peter Kafka of AllThingsD points out that fellow ATD reporter John Paczkowski learned earlier this month that the event would revolve around Apple’s new "textbook initiative." However, writes Kafka, "none of the big textbook publishers are working with iBooks and Apple’s iOS ecosystem in any significant way."
TechCrunch's sources said earlier in the month that the upcoming event "will focus on publishing and eBooks (sold through Apple's iBooks platform)."
Previously, rumor-mongers had been hoping to see the release of the next-generation iPad -- or even the long-rumored Apple Television set -- by the end of January. Those rumors are mostly dead at this point.
Check out the invitation (below), and be sure to check back here at 10 a.m. ET on January 19.
In the meantime, what do you think Apple will announce next week? Let us know in the comments, but don't get too carried away with the wild speculations about Apple's plans. We've had plenty of that this past year.
Take a look through the slideshow to see 2011's worst Apple rumors.
Much of the rampant speculation began in February, when widely-read Apple writer John Gruber speculated -- and we're talking SPECULATED, based on no inside information whatsoever, a fact he admitted outright in the column -- that his gut was saying that the iPad 2 would be released in Spring 2011, followed by the iPad 3 in Fall 2011, perhaps in September. Despite what should have been everyone's better judgment, news outlets went bananas on this column (One headline: "Gruber Confirms iPad 3 In Blog Rant?") until March, when the iPad 2 was released and Apple, in an announcement accompanied by a sad trombone, dubbed 2011 "The Year of the iPad 2." This seemed to rule out that a second iPad would follow later that year; Apple bloggers everywhere shed a single tear for a device there was never any evidence existed.
The trail of the single tear was still moist in May when everyone forgot that Apple had said 2011 was The Year of the iPad 2 and went bananas again. A May report from T3.com put the iPad 3 on track for a September release; a concurrent rumor claimed the iPad 3 would be a glasses-free 3D device, which I suppose could still be true (I'm dubious of Apple promoting one of its products with such a stupid gimmick, but I've been wrong before). The 2011 iPad 3 rumors mounted and mounted: A May article from Reuters put the iPad 3 on track for Q4 2011 release, and then Asia weighed in with reports from the supply chain: An analyst working in Hong Kong said that a 4G iPad 3 would arrive just in time for Christmas; Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes reported in July that Apple would start production on the iPad 3 in September and would make it available in October; Japanese Apple site Macotakara independently confirmed that DigiTimes was correct.
And that's not all: Also in July, non-Asian tech siteThe Verge nee This Is My Next reported that the iPad HD would be released in Fall 2011, as did FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger.Isn't it comforting to know that in this day and age of multinational aggression, distrust and strife that we, as a planet, can sometimes come together and all be wrong about the iPad 3's release date as one?
It was at this point, in August, that The Wall Street Journal weighed in with a report that, due to problems with the display screen on the supply chain, the iPad 3 was being pushed back to 2012. Analysts agreed, with most predicting that the iPad 3 would be released in early 2012 a.k.a. exactly one year after the iPad 2 was released a.k.a exactly the way that Apple ALWAYS released iterative updates to its devices.
News by Huffingtonpost
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