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unveiling less than a week away, at a media event detailing iOS 4.3′s new features and in-app subscriptions. MacNotes.de (via AppleInsider), a German Apple blog, reports the iPad 2 could be the “one more thing” at that event, citing accessory industry sources.

It’s likely that Apple is planning some kind of press event or
announcement detailing iOS 4.3 features, including Personal Hotspot, and
the availability of the new subscriptions feature (or enforced requirement) for periodicals, since at the launch of iPad newspaper The Daily,
Apple VP Eddy Cue basically said as much. It’s a much harder pill to
swallow that Apple would unveil something as important as the iPad 2 at
such an event.

Apple admittedly has a flair for the dramatic, but it also fully
realizes the brand awareness value of major product announcements. To
tack an iPad 2 announcement to the tail end of an iOS 4.3 event would be
the opposite of media savvy. No doubt it would net headlines, but it
wouldn’t have the build-up or the anticipation that would otherwise be
accorded such a major product reveal. Think about timing. If Apple
wanted to unveil the iPad 2 next week, it could have spent this week
stealing the wind from Google’s Android Honeycomb
sails. It did this anyway with the Verizon iPhone pre-sales launch,
and, to a lesser extend, with The Daily. And with the iPhone 4′s general
public launch set for Feb. 10, there’s no way Apple is going to compete
with itself for media attention by launching the iPad 2 only a couple
of days later.

While we may be seeing the equivalent of the orchestra’s discordant
warm up before the house lights go down, Apple’s hype machine still has
plenty of steam left to gain. And unlike last time around, Apple likely
won’t give a peek behind the curtain before the show’s ready to start.
The iPad was introduced on Jan. 27 2010, just over two months before its actual release on Apr. 3.
There isn’t usually such a large gap between an Apple product’s
unveiling and its release, but there’s a good reason Apple did this with
the original iPad: There wasn’t any competition to worry about. Despite
Microsoft making a big deal about tablets at CES earlier that month,
when Apple unveiled the iPad, there were no competitors even close to
able to go to market with a similar tablet device. Cupertino could’ve
given itself six months to get the product out.

This time around, it’s a different story. There’s no longer any
benefit to letting an announced iPad model sit in the minds of consumers
for a couple of months before a release. Apple has the luxury of
leading the industry with its current model, so an early announcement
would probably dent its own sales more than that of its competitors. The
iPad 2 will benefit most from an announced, dedicated event with ample
build-up, followed by a quick release of the device into the hands of
waiting consumers, possibly through instant pre-orders and a public
release a couple of weeks down the road. What it won’t do is piggy back
in on the back of a decimal point software update that few outside the
tech community will be paying close attention to.

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